Days 19 and 20 - Around Town

I feel like I've somehow lost a day along the way in trying to keep track of "travel days". I started traveling on September 2nd, making today the 22nd "travel day 21" but I can't figure out how I've only updated for 20 days including today...oh well!

Yesterday was quite an adventure in problem solving! One of those kind of days when you really just want to get back in bed to roll out the other side and try again - thankfully even when I'm frustrated I've learned to just remember that it's all going to work out in the end and you'll clean up the mess as best you can. Lucky for me the mess was minimal and today I can kind of look back and laugh at the craziness that started because I looked at but didn't pick up a key ring (or my phone).

I woke up and played around with Caddy while watching an episode of Sherlock (I'm so hooked!) and a bit of living room Zumba. Caddy and I went outside a couple of times to walk around, but always through the back door. I was getting ready to go meet Lisa, a friend of an acquaintance, who had agreed to talk to me about her job as a DNP (doctor of nursing practice) and an NP (nurse practitioner), and wanted a different pair of shoes from my car. I plugged in my phone to charge, grabbed my car keys, made a mental note to grab the house key when I came back inside, and headed out the door. I heard Caddy jump against the door after I left but didn't think anything of it until I tried to get back in. Locked. Locked?!

I didn't have my phone, which meant that I couldn't call my hosts because I didn't know their numbers by heart. I couldn't email them because all of my internet-connecting devices were in the house (with the dog who normally spends the day in her kennel). I checked with some neighbors but none of them had any contact numbers or spare keys - note to self, give my phone number to neighbors when I move somewhere. I vaguely remembered the address of the restaurant where I was supposed to meet Lisa and had my GPS in the car, so I used that to get to a library to get the full address (it's new enough that the GPS couldn't find it by name). At the restaurant I used the hostess' phone to email Lisa and call Dan (and my mother, the only phone number I know by heart, even though I didn't think she could help and I suspected correctly that she was golfing). Sadly Lisa and I didn't manage to find each other, and since we hadn't met before I didn't recognize her, so after an hour I called it quits and went to figure out how to get back in the house.

After another round at a library to check my email, I met up with Dan to get his key and went home to find that Caddy had been perfectly behaved and clearly spent most of the day sleeping on the couch - whew! I got in touch with Lisa and apologized profusely for my unusual flakiness, and we met up today instead for coffee. After returning the keys to Dan I spent the evening with Rocky and company - a very fun ending to a crazy day!

Today I met with Lisa and Melanie (the woman who introduced us) for coffee and spent a fantastic hour learning all about the many routes one can take in nursing, as well as receiving some very good advice on the upcoming changes in nursing education and scope of practice at various levels. I've got some more research homework to do, but I feel like I'm at least aware of some of the questions I need to be asking. I wandered around Cherry Creek for a little bit, and now I'm happily reliving my childhood sitting in the Columbine branch of the JeffCo Library, staring out the giant semicircle of floor to ceiling windows at the lake and the foothills (the windows could use a cleaning!). I grew up coming to the library all the time, checking out bags of books at a time. I would take them and sit in the golf bag holder of the golf cart while Mom played and I read, getting out to drive us down the fairway if we weren't in sight of anyone official, or trying to read and hang on at the same time if we were near the clubhouse and I wasn't allowed to drive ;)

Not many photos from the past two days and I seem to be having an issue with getting photos off my phone and onto my computer now that I've updated the iOS, but I'll keep working at it and try to add some puppy pictures tonight or tomorrow!

Edit: Just kidding! Figured it out :)