Hello, Elko

Ok, that was fun. If you ever have the opportunity to be wined and dined--even if it's in a town where you're pretty sure you wouldn't want to live--take the opportunity! Jared had his resume sent to a hospital in Elko, Nevada a few months ago. We'd never been to Elko, but we figured we should apply anywhere that might offer a good salary within a 4-hour drive of Utah Valley and just see where that took us. As it turns out, Elko is in desperate need of primary care physicians. They offered to fly us to Elko, put us up in a nice hotel, feed us yummy foods, and take us site-seeing for a couple days if Jared would come over for an interview. Pretty nice to be in that position after 7 years of the stressful, competitive, uncertain medical training lyfe.

We decided to go for just two days and a night, since I have never spent a single night away from Jack in his 2 years and I was feeling apprehensive about the whole thing. Jared was able to get a few days off from work. We dropped Jack off with Grandma and Grandpa Haines in Utah, and then the next day me and Jared did a Jackless road trip (astounding!) to Elko. It took about 4 hours and there wasn't much to see other than the Salt Flats. BUT. As you begin to approach Elko you catch snippets of the Ruby Mountains out in the distance. They're big and pretty and green. The Elko locals call them the Swiss Alps of Northern Nevada. Not sure I'd go that far, but they are pretty! I'd say prettier than Casper mountain, and a lot bigger.

Our "excursion" began with lunch up the canyon with a lovely hospital employee named Terri and her husband, Keith. The food (McAdoo's) and company were both 5 stars. The hospital picked the absolute right people to show us around. I feel like Terri and Keith are us in 30 years, but actually lots cooler. Keith rides his horse up the canyon every morning to photograph wildlife and fly his drone over the top of the mountain to discover new lakes and waterfalls. They will probably be our adopted Elko parents/babysitters if we move there. After lunch we drove the rest of the way up Lamoille Canyon, passing waterfall after waterfall the whole way up. We did a 40-minute hike up a scenic horse trail before Jared had to get back to the hospital for his interview.

Jared says his interview went great. He wore a mask through the whole thing, which was a unique experience. While he interviewed and toured the hospital, I went to the hotel they put us up in and got all ready for the interview dinner. It's been a loooong time since I've had something to get dolled up and curl my hair for. Felt nice. We ended up being overdressed at first (the hospital CEO was in jeans) since they were going to take us to a low-key Mexican restaurant. But it ended up being closed for the evening so they took us to a fancier Italian restaurant where we were dressed just right, with Jared in a sports' coat borrowed from my dad and me in a summery dress. We had steak and seafood. 5/5 stars, would recommend being treated to steak and seafood. We love the casual feel of Elko and its residents. Reminds us a lot of Casper.

I know they probably took us to all the very best restaurants in town to try and impress us, but hey, it worked. Mmmm. Our dinner conversation was delightful and informative (they were excited when I pulled out my list of questions for them), and Jared swears that they must have hired paid actors to interrupt our dinner. A locums tenums surgeon and his wife "happened" to come into the restaurant and stop by our table. When told that we were here to look into a physician job, they gushed about how much they love Elko, and how they want to leave Las Vegas to come work here because it's so beautiful. They did a great job making Elko sound amazing. So either that was a very lucky coincidence for the CEO, or they were totally hired to bump into us hahaha. Probably a lucky coincidence, but I thought it was funny when Jared suggested the paid actors theory.

^^Blurry picture in the middle of getting ready. I kept my curls pinned up until we got in the car.

After our dinner, Jared and I went for a sunset drive around the Spring Creek area. Spring Creek is a cute little town next to Elko, up against the Ruby Mountains. It's where we would most likely live if we take the job. The mountain views are stunning, the homes are on land parcels of at least an acre, and they have the cutest marina on a little lake. Totally our scene. In fact, I don't really understand why anyone would live in Elko when Spring Creek is just around the bend. Probably because Elko is closer to the mines, which is the main industry there. It was very nice to be able to drive around, just me and Jared. We headed back to the hotel and soaked in the hot tub for a few minutes before conking out, exhausted from a busy day of being wined and dined so hard. I had the realization that kids are wined and dined 100% of the time, and then I promptly became very jealous of kids. That was crazy nice to have every part of my day and meals all planned out by someone else and taken care of.

We woke up early the next morning to make it to breakfast at 7:30 at another cute local place, I think called "Dreez." Terri met us there and we had a nice little conversation over omelettes and pancakes. Delicious omelettes and delicious pancakes, I might add. Good job, Elko. Terri drove us down into Lamoille--the cutest tiny old town past Spring Creek with lots of horses, farms, a quaint river, and quainter downtown area. We stopped at her house on the way and she showed us the magical treehouse she's building for her grandkids. I think we could be really happy living in that quiet, beautiful area.

We finished off our tour d' Elko with a nice long drive with a realtor named Delmo. He drove us all around Elko and the surrounding towns, and took us through probably a good 7-8 homes. Truthfully it was probably too many and we were exhausted by the end of the tour, but it was a helpful experience if we're going to be buying a house there in the next year. Unfortunately Elko is a surprisingly expensive place to live considering how rural it is. But the population is growing steadily and the median household income is pretty high because mining pays well, so the higher cost of living makes sense. It's more expensive than Casper, but less expensive than Utah. My favorite property we saw was a cedar wood house on the most beautiful property (12 acres!) up on a hill. It had great privacy and a wonderful view of the Rubies. Jared would prefer a newer home, and to be honest that would probably be a better idea in case the job ended up being whacky and we needed to resell. I'm getting ahead of myself though. We don't even know what state we'll be living in next year yet.

The drive home was pretty uneventful, but we had some good conversations. I think we both went into the Elko interview not expecting much. We were treating it as more of a backup option, and maybe even just as a good way to get some official interview experience and an offer to help when negotiating salary with other jobs? But after the time we spent there, Elko is a definite contender. Jared thinks the work experience there would be great for his career, and we could definitely be happy in a quiet town near the mountains, with a Walmart and plenty of people. It's a little further from family than is ideal, but otherwise wonderful. Evanston wins for being more accessible to family, but in the end our decision will likely come down to which job offers the best salary and additional benefits. After all, we've got a LOT of med school debt to pay off, and family medicine isn't known for being the wealthiest specialty. As always, I'll keep you updated with what we decide! We don't have any numbers in front of us yet--just tentative job offers and upcoming contracts/term sheets in the works. We might even squeeze in another interview or two in the next few months. It's an exciting time. Hopefully we'll have something pegged down by the end of the summer.

(Sorry there weren't more pictures--they just kept us so busy that I never really had a chance to think to pull my camera out!)