The Eagle Has Landed

Well, Katie and I are in Peoria and are starting to feel settled. We closed on our house is lovely Morton, IL on June 2nd. Big thanks to my Dad, my MIL, Andy Gilbert, Charles Jackson, and Adam Eng for the help moving. We spent the next few days frantically unpacking, organizing, and blowing lots of money.

That Sunday we went down to Naples, FL with Brian and Aimme Bement and Jeff and Sarah Thompson. We rented a nice little condo with its own pool. Naples was wicked hot and there weren't that many people around since it's off-peak season. Our group was made up of people from the whole spectrum of "People who need to be doing something all day every day on vacation" to "People who just like slothing about doing nothing while on vacation." Brian is far on the activities side (Clipboard of Fun), while I'm on the slothing about side (Please roll me every few hours). Everyone else was scattered in between. I think that the vacation was overall a mix of both. I got to read all of To Kill a Mockingbird and a lot of David Brainerd's Journal, two of my favorite books. I lost half my body weight in sweat one morning when I went running. I went golfing with Brian and Jeff one day. I bought 6 golf balls before the round, figuring that, since I was a little rusty, I might lose a few. Little did I know that there was out-of-bounds and/or significant water hazards on EVERY SINGLE HOLE. Plus I was a little rustier than I thought. I shot 120, which wasn't all that horrendous considering I lost 10 balls. At least I didn't get bit by a gator.

Another day, while Brian and Jeff were golfing, I escorted the ladies on a nature tour of the everglades, including a fanboat ride. My Mom told me the fanboats were a waste of time/money, but we enjoyed it.

Here we are on our fanboat. The top two people on the left are some Brits who were with us:
Here's a Manitee we saw on the fanboat ride:
Before the fanboat ride, we went up to a little nature observation area and saw some gators:

This was the coolest thing we saw that day. It's hard to see in the picture, but it's a dead & bloated gator upside down being eaten by a buzzard while floating down the canal:
Believe it or not, that was not the nature hightlight of the trip. On our last full day, we rented some kayaks just north of Marco Island. After paddling about for about an hour, we decided to start heading back. Just as Katie and I were heading out from a little beach, I heard Katie say "Jay, is that a .... AH! It's a Dolphin it's a Dolphin!" Actually it was three Dolphins. They let us get real close and were swimming around/underneath us. I was freaking out. We followed them for a while, and then caught up with our fellow humans who had also happened on a group of dolphins. I tried to jump in and swim with them. I wish I'd had my snorkle. Here are some pics:

Afterwards we had some lunch. Mmmm Gator nuggets!

We got home late Saturday night and drove to Rockford to pick up Rinkle, who was with my parents. We had a great time in Naples with our friends.

My orientation started that Wednesday and concluded just this past Friday. During orientation Katie and I also worked on house stuff. Ashleigh came for a visit last Monday. My first shift was the "night float" shift from 7 p.m. until 9 a.m. Sunday morning. It was a long night and my brain felt like mush by the time I collapsed in bed for 8 hours on Sunday. Plus people kept calling me doctor all night.

Morton is a town of about 11,000 and is about 12 minutes on the interstate from the hospital where I work. It's famous for the annual Pumpkin Days. I hope to run in the 10k this year.

Well, I better get back to my 4th of July celebration. I look forward to watching the hot dog eating contest.