League's Excellent Adventure was over. It truly was the trip of our lifetime! We will remember and savor our experiences and memories for the rest of our lives. Our plan is to make this blog into a book so that we can easily relive every day and every experience.
We returned to work
Rochester skyline over Silver Lake
about a week after we got back to Rochester. And boy, did we return to work. In order to be gone for the year, I had agreed to work full time for the rest of the year. Full time at Mayo Clinic is not 40 hours a week .... it's about 55 with all the paper work, phone calls, and extra things needed. My first day back, I was simply thrilled. It truly is a tremendous job .... it is the perfect blend, for me, of intellectual challenge, personal relationships with my patients and colleagues, and the knowledge that some of the time, at least, I am actually helping make people's lives a little bit better. So I love my job, and am very happy to be back at it. But I'll look forward to a little LESS of it in January, when I am able to reduce my time commitment to 60%.
I did remember how to do it all, although some parts were a little rusty. But my fingers displayed great motor memory when they automatically punched the numbers to access the dictation line. I did get a little tired one night when I brought my dictation home. I fell asleep while I was dictating but apparently spoke clearly enough that the transcriptionist could transcribe it. I was worried that I might have made a mistake, so I checked it right away the next morning, and did find some kind of ridiculous statements in the text. I really thought somebody else's dictation had been confused with mine. But then the supervisor of the transcription department called our secretarial supervisor and asked if I had had "a stroke!" It's kind of scary to think you can talk nonsense and it's clear enough that someone could understand it and transcribe it. I now make sure I don't start projects like that when I'm tired!
Gary is also pleased to be back. He has resumed the reins of his practice and is happy to be there. While his orthodontic practice remains for sale, he is happy he has it now. It's keeping him busy and he enjoys it for now. But we do miss the road .... if able, we would take off again tomorrow (but probably just the two of us!). Liz is thrilled to be back and while she remembers fun parts, she's very happy to stay home indefinitely.
So we're back in our routine. We try to unpack two or three boxes every week that were stored in the basement. Fortunately, much of it is being given away or tossed .... if we didn't need it for a year, we likely don't need it!
We have been happy to hear how many people followed us on our blog while we were on our great adventure. Many of my patients, our friends, our co-workers will comment or ask about our experiences. One of my favorites was the lady who checks me out when I buy breakfast in the Mayo cafeteria. A couple of weeks ago she asked me how Maxine was .... Gary's mother. She remembered reading about her from our visit last fall.
We have been asked to share our story and pictures a couple of times. It's obviously very difficult to trim down the experience to a 20-30 minute report. We have a short version (100 slides) and the LONG version (1600 slides ..... out or 7500 pictures taken). Gary and I can look at the long version all day long.
This will be our last entry in this blog. Perhaps there will be another League Adventure .... in the summer or after Liz goes to college. We'll let you know .... and we hope to see you on the road somewhere.
XXXOOO,
Julie, Gary and Elizabeth League!
