Hello everyone! It's been quite a while since I posted, so I figured it's time for a general update about life. This won't be the same type of travel destination-focused post that I normally write, I just want to get you all up to speed on my life since my last entry.
Last time I wrote, I was working on a cruise ship on the Hudson River, but I knew the boat I was on would soon be shut down for the season. Sure enough, the company sent me home to wait until they needed me again...and I ended up waiting four months. Pretty quickly I knew that I would need to find something else, so I applied for a bunch of jobs and got hired by UPS as a Driver Helper for the holidays, and part time at a liquor store on the weekends. For all of December, I worked 7 days a week, and I was very happy when UPS ended and I was able to get full-time hours at the liquor store, because at least then I was just working 40 hours and had two days off per week.
This was a frustrating time for me, not just because I was waiting to hear back from the boat and had no idea when they would call me, but also because I found out about several health issues that completely caught me off guard. I always thought of myself as so healthy, and it suddenly felt like my body was letting me down. So I had to change my diet, even more drastically than the vegan diet I've been eating most of the time for the past few years, and luckily the diet changes helped resolve one of the issues. However, the changes continue. Just a few weeks ago, I found out I potentially have Celiac disease, so I had to cut out gluten. Within a couple weeks, though, the digestive issues I'd been experiencing for years improved immensely! I wish I had known years ago that I was gluten-intolerant; it would have saved me a lot of trouble.
So that will continue to be a journey for me in the coming months and years as I try to determine what is the best diet for me and to see if I can resolve the remaining health issue by changing what I eat. But for now, the adventures continue. I finally got called back to a boat two weeks ago, this time to cruise on the Mississippi River based out of New Orleans. I've wanted to visit New Orleans for years now, and it's exciting that I finally get a chance to see and explore it. Like I said, this post isn't so much about the places I'm traveling, but I will include a few pictures just to give you a taste of what I'm up to.
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| The Queen of the Mississippi, the boat I am working on |
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| The Queen of the Mississippi docked at Oak Alley, Lousiana |
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| The famous (or infamous) Bourbon Street in New Orleans |
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| I love the architectural style of the French Quarter in NOLA |
And now an update on my future plans: I will be on the cruise ship until May 6, and then May 15 I start a summer job at Crater Lake National Park! I'm so excited to be working for the National Park Service, which has been a goal of mine for the past few years, especially at my favorite National Park that I have visited so far.
I'm currently writing this in a cafe in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and I should get back to the boat soon since I am working the midnight to noon shift this week and I need to go to sleep. I will not have a lot of free time in the coming weeks since we work 12 hours on, 12 hours off, and most of my off time is spent eating and sleeping, but I will do my best to post again about the sights I'm seeing on the cruise. Thanks for reading!
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