Looking for an escape from the covid pandemic that didn’t involve crowds or cities, Leah and I took a day to drive and hike the Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic highway that runs from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina, running along the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
For a quick day trip, we flew out to the Asheville Regional Airport, rented a car, and drove north. We took in the scenic views driving, and stopped along the way to take a few hikes. The most notable was Mount Mitchell State Park, the highest point east of the Mississippi River. After exploring a little bit of nature, Leah and I returned to Durham rejuvinated.
Although Durham was inland enough that Hurricane Florence was felt mostly as a few days of heavy rain, it was devastating to southeastern North Carolina and the Outer Banks. Although the storm surge and winds were in line with other Carolina hurricanes, its lingering path across the eastern portion of the state dropped 35 inches of rain in some places. This caused severe flooding and power outages, closed thousands of roads, and disrupted the transport of food and supplies to the eastern swath of the state.
Operation Airdrop is a nonprofit organization formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 to deliver supplies to inaccessible areas after natural disasters. I was lucky enough to be able to fit one Airdrop mission between a week of neuroanesthesia and a week of night call. Erin, a combined internal medicine / pediatrics resident, and I delivered a batch of food, bottled water, batteries, bug spray, and childcare supplies to Columbus County, North Carolina. It was rewarding to have the opportunity to help out in this small way, and the story got picked up by the Duke Anesthesia newsletter.
 |
 |
After an overnight labor and delivery anesthesia shift, sometimes you just need to dip your toes in the Ocracoke water before heading back home to get some sleep.
One of my constant favorite local landing spots is Carthage, North Carolina, where the Pik-n-Pig barbecue place sits on an otherwise sleepy little airstrip. On a sunny afternoon, though, planes fly in from all over to get a tasty lunch, and locals drive in to watch planes takes off and land while they eat. This weekend, my parents visited, and we went with my sister to grab some barbecue! The opportunity to get a few pictures was too perfect…
To celebrate New Years, and a few days free from the trials of intern year, Leah and I flew to New York City to watch the ball drop in Times Square. While we were there, we managed to catch showings of Waitress and The Book of Mormon on Broadway, wander through Central Park, and of course grab some bagels and dumplings!
Just in time for Halloween, Jerome and Eva of Penn MSTP fame, and possibly the nerdiest couple known to man, were married in the planetarium at The Franklin Institute. Appropriately enough Jerome walked down the aisle to the Star Wars theme, and Eva to the song from Disney’s Anastasia. The wedding cake toppers were from Disney’s WALL-E.
I flew up for the occasion, and was also able to reunite with Penn State Company 20 friends, Cecilia and Lauren, and take one more Hudson River corridor flight.
 |
 |
Probably the greatest thing about the Duke Anesthesiology internship year is getting to know and work with fantastic physicians throughout the hospital. My internal medicine team — Jenny the senior resident, Jenny the MD/PhD student, and Erik the PA student — was no exception, and so after we finished up our work a little early on a pre-call Thursday, we snuck out to some fly-in barbecue.
