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My heath care career took me across 3 states, starting in South Dakota, then California here I come and then ended In Colorado. Was going to say ended on Rocky Mountain high but was afraid some people would think it meant something else. I started nursing school in Rapid City South Dakota, but before finishing moved to California at age 20. My room mate from college moved there and said come on out its great. So packed up a Uhaul and talked my sister into driving with me to California. It was not a dull trip,. Driving across Wyoming we had snow and black ice.I was driving and my sister was sleeping and hit black ice and starting sliding all over the interstate. My sister woke up quickly due to being bounced around the car or it might of been me panicly screaming her name. I finally got the car stopped but the Uhaul had jacked knife, it was sitting along side of my car. Fortunately a couple of cars with several guys stopped to help us. They simply picked up the Uhaul and put it back in its correct place, and that was it no more driving for me. Then we hit Las Vegas and it was like a 120 degrees, we checked into a nice hotel for the night and promptly got sick. So no gambling or fun for us. We made it to California, little did I know that where I would be living was the middle of the Mojave desert. Hot, hot, and hotter but there were these cool Joshua trees that I had never seen before. The next day after arriving, my sister was flying back to South Dakota, so we had to get to LAX. We hit the freeway and 6 lanes of traffic going the same direction. I had never seen anything like it before, there are only 2 lane interstates in South Dakota. LAX was about 65 miles from where I lived, as we are driving there, I ask my sister “how am I’m going to get back to my apartment” , her response was ” just reverse everything we did to get here”. Well, it took me 6 hours to get back, if I could of found my way back to South Dakota I probably would of went back. It was pure culture shock for this small town country girl. I got a job working night shift as a CNA for a LA county hospital and then started nursing school again. I worked full time and went to school full time. Good thing I was young when I did this. One of my instructors in school told me one day ” I am actually going to do a lecture that you stay awake for the whole thing”. I don’t think that ever happened. Lectures were hard to sit through after being up all night. Clinicals were ok, just didn’t sit down for 8 hours, which I learned was just training for the next 34 years of nursing. This same instructor every clinical day would ” inspect” us to see if we were appropriately dressed. If wearing a dress, you must wear a slip, white hose with no runs in them and that your underwear could not be seen. If you didn’t pass, you got sent home and had to make up those clinical hours later. I never got sent home but saw many classmates that did. It was during this time I met my husband. We were in the same Chemistry class, his long running joke he just can’t help but say, ” it was pure chemistry when we met”. Yes these are the kind of jokes I have had the pleasure of putting up with for nearly 40 years.