Fridley, Minnesota

Fifth Assignment: Fridley, Minnesota
Dates: May 8th, 2006 through August 5th, 2006
Address: 33 Village Pkwy
Unit 423
Circle Pines, Minnesota 55014
Hospital: Unity Hospital

It took 3 days to get there from Rocky Mount. Luckily my dad drove up with me. We took turns driving. We went through Virginia, West Virginia (lots of mountains), Kentucky (pretty state), Indiana (stayed a night there), and Wisconsin (stayed a night there also). We went all over the Twin Cities area. We went to the Mall of America, a Twins game at the Metrodome, and to Mystic Lake Casino. My dad had luck, but I didn’t. I used the rest of my Las Vegas money. We were having such a good time we stayed for 6 hours.

I met Ann Chauvin (Marteau now) the day I moved in. She is from Louisiana and on her first assignment. She lived right down the hall and it just so happened that she was working at Unity on the M/B unit too. We hung out almost every day we were not working. We went to the Mall of America twice to ride the rides, once just us and then with her boyfriend at time, Zack. That was a lot of fun. Ann went to Chicago for her next assignment. We have kept in touch with each other since Minnesota. (A great friends to this day!)

I worked days and nights on this assignment. It was the first time I ever worked days! It was a little bit of an adjustment, but not too bad. Day shift can be hectic, but at least I get to sleep when normal people sleep (at night). I ended up working mostly day shift. The hospital was well staffed and pretty well organized. They were in the midst of changing from paper charting to computer charting. By the time they started the computer charting though, I was already gone. All of the nurses were very nice. I felt like I fit in the very first day! I definitely enjoyed this assignment.

My apartment was brand new. It was very nice, but still had a few quirks to work out. The elevator broke down a few times while I was there and it was also though to get in touch with the manager. She was hardly ever in her office, but overall it was very nice. It was about 15 minutes from work.

While I was in MN, I took a trip to Chicago for the first time. I took two tours while I was there. Chicago is very nice! I really enjoyed my weekend there! I took lots of pictures. I saw everything I could possibly see in a weekend.

My mom flew up so we could drive to my next assignment in California. We took a few detours along the way. We drove through the badlands of South Dakota, saw Devils Tower and went to Mount Rushmore. We also drove through Yellowstone National Park. I’m really glad we did because it was really pretty and interesting, especially Old Faithful. After that we drove by the salt flats in Utah and the desert of Nevada on the way to Lake Tahoe, by way of Reno. We stayed in Lake Tahoe for the night and gambled a little, but neither of us had any luck. The next day we drove over to Sacramento to get my California Nursing License. Then we drove down the 17 mile drive and through Big Sur. It was a very pretty ride, but a very long one. We finally arrived in Oceanside, but there were no rooms available so we kept going on to San Diego. While in San Diego, we went to Sea World and took a harbor cruise! I took lots of pictures of the whole trip. (Gotta love digital cameras!)