Back to the Drawing Board

or 

"External Rotations"

Take 2

Well, that was fun... dreaming of all the new places we could go during rotations.  Then we started doing some number crunching. 

Miles to Pennsylvania: 3000

Days to get there: at least 4 

Price of a U-haul: $1500

Price in fuel: $1500

At least 2 nights in a hotel (this is assuming we could stay with family in Utah & CO on the way out): $200 - $300

Food along the way & until we unpack the kitchen: $200 -$300

So just to get to Pennsylvania would cost roughly: $3500

Then of course, we'd have to do it all over again on the way back. 

Miles to Oklahoma: 2000 miles

Days to get there: 3 

Price of a U-haul: $1200

Etc.

Etc. 

Etc. 

Miles to Colorado: 1300

Days to get there: 2 (we're getting better)

Price of a U-haul: $1200 (the same as going to Oklahoma)

And so on...

And so forth...

Basically, we decided we just couldn't afford to go across the U.S., especially when there are really good rotations much closer to home.  

  So now our map looks like this.

* Salem, Oregon (RED - Indian Health Clinic)

* Eugene, Oregon (BLUE - a group of private practices)

* Roseburg, Oregon (RED - VA Hospital)

*Bandon, Oregon (GREEN - Private practice)

Oregon.  We do still have back up plans if these don't pan out, some of which are in Washington, Utah, and Colorado.  While we won't be traveling the country, we'll still have grand adventures seeing more of our own state.  

There are many advantages to staying in Oregon.  This is where we want to end up.  We love Oregon and want to live here and raise our family here.  If we do all our rotations here, we'll meet lots of optometrists who have practices all over the state.  Hopefully this will open doors and make connections that will result in a job after school and in the end, that's what is most important.  

We'll also get to experience living in some of these areas we might settle in.  We'll already know the area and have a better idea of what parts we'd want to live in. 

Plus,

Miles from our house to Salem, OR: 50 miles

Days to get there: 1 hour

No hotels

Can drive there to pick out an apartment to live in

Can take all our stuff, no need for storage unit somewhere

Cost of U-haul: $130 (and that's for a truck twice as big as the one we would have taken back east).

No need for a utility trailer to haul the motorcycle

$3500 vs. $130  

Hmmm.  Can't really argue with that.  

So the Internal rotation lottery will start everything off in just a few weeks.  Then we'll know if we will have an internal rotation or not and whether we'll need to go back to the drawing board again or not.

When I explained to Logan that we'd probably be staying in Oregon for our rotations, he whined, "Buuuut, I wanted to travel the wooooorld!"  

This from the kid who hates change and anything new or different.  He was finally up for an adventure.  That's okay.  I think it will be adventure enough, finding a new place to live and moving every 3 months.