4/16/14 I'm Not in Kansas Anymore....

Tumbleweeds are real thing.
Cows stink.
And "the middle of nowhere" exists.
These are all thoughts that I had driving over 1,300 miles from Atlanta, Georgia to Rushville, Nebraska for my first assignment as a traveling Nurse Practitioner.

When I finally arrived to my rental house, a sense of panic that I usually don't experience (not even when diving with a 8 ft bull shark) hit me. The house is in a town that seems to be the length of 2 football fields. Population 890, turns out. I'm on a street of houses and cars that have definitely seen better days. There is a field of cows behind me that seems to stretch to the horizon. My house appears to be a house built onto a house built onto a house, using chicken wire and concrete. I enter into the house and assume it must be under construction noting bare wooden steps, plastic over windows, and an odd collection of floor, space, and electric heaters, of which none seem to be working. As I explore the house I find a backdoor covered in duct tape. Then I go around the corner and find a stairwell boarded over. Well, at least there is a dream catcher in the window..that will protect me from the torture room upstairs right? After making a few frantic phone calls I reach the landlord who is going to come over and show me how the heaters work (and reassure me this isn't the start to a bad horror movie...)

Good thing I have Chippy to keep me safe!