North Country Fall Festivities

Kelvin and I are loving life on the "North Coast." We are really appreciating life in a small town, which is absolutely devoid of traffic and which comes with the convenience of us being able to run virtually any errand by driving no more than 10 minutes. We generally work from 8:15 or so to 5 on weekdays (with a 1.5 hour lunch break!), except I have Tuesday free from clinic duties. We are usually out of clinic with notes done by about 5:10 or so (oh, what a change from residency!), due to our fabulous medical assistants and the awesome efficiency of the clinic as a whole.

I just got added to the OB backup call schedule, which means that I am on call (from home) about 30-40% of the time for our group's patients who are higher risk or who may require an operative delivery (or VBAC). The hospital privileging process has been quite drawn-out and frustrating, and I still need to get "proctored" for deliveries as well as surgical procedures, but I think we are getting there. I got oriented a bit more this past weekend but haven't had to do any actual patient care yet in our tiny community hospital (labor and delivery has just 3 laboring beds and 2 triage meds, quite different than UCD's large unit!).

Kelvin and I continue to be amazed by the sheer number of activities that go on every weekend, which seems and is far out of proportion to the population here. On Friday, we saw a Sondheim musical, "Into the Woods," based on Grimm Fairy Tales, at Eureka's Repertory Theater. On Saturday evening at the Arcata Playhouse, we caught a clown performance by the Pi Clowns, a San Francisco Physical Comedy Troupe, whose comedic acts and juggling routines had us and all the other audience members rolling with laughter and ooh-ing and aah-ing with respect.

This weekend was also the North Country Fair & Harvest Festival, an annual fair in Humboldt County held on the Arcata Plaza that boasts over 200 craft, food, and information booths, as well as live music and parades. We stopped by on Saturday, and were really impressed by the various artisans' goods and activities. We were blessed by fabulous sunny and warm weather which made it a joy to be outside! Apparently over 10,000 people were expected to attend!

Here are hula hoopers on the green:


I was really excited to make a wax flower (you could also do a wax hand) when I saw that booth, which had a long line of children. This reminded me both of summer camp at Camp Lake Hubert in MN, when making wax "sundae" candles was one of my favorite activities, as well as a bit of a past Minnesota state fair, when I lined up with a bunch of five-year-olds to milk a cow, as that was a new activity for me :)





Here is me with my wax sunflower, which, like a piece of elementary school art, is now displayed proudly on one of our living room shelves :)


While we were ambling around the various booths, a man in a jousting costume came up to Kelvin and asked if he was interested in information on the Medieval Festival that is scheduled for next weekend. We were interested in checking it out, but both of us envisioned walking around and feeling weird with everyone else wearing medieval garb... Kelvin clarified that we don't, in fact, have to dress in period dress which is good because neither of own anything that would remotely pass; however, we might still go to sample the huge turkey legs (and because watching jousting is always fun, right?!). We are not bored here yet!