Recap: Virginia & D.C. | Amplifying Women in Healthcare and Health IT

Being on the East Coast has presented a few logistical challenges —nothing that hasn’t been figure-out-able, but challenges nonetheless.

First challenge: the time change. The technology I used to set up the logistics of each hike was defaulted to Pacific Daylight Time, so the timing of the hike in Burke Lake, Virginia was intended to start Sunday morning at 9 am. I knew something was off when Brittany texted me on Saturday asking if I really meant to start our hike at 6 am. It gave me a clue to reach out to the registered participants and make a post about coordinating an ideal start time of 11:30 am EDT.

However, I missed one very important attendee - Kathleen Aller, of InterSytstems. She called me at 8:15 am on Sunday at the hike’s meet-up point. And me, having just woken up and semi-recovered from Saturday’s 5-hour drive from North Carolina, hustled like nobody’s business to get over and meet her. Turns out Shereese and her sister, Toni, didn’t get the 11:30 am memo either, and were also 10 minutes away. So, the four of us, and Juno embarked on the 4.7 mile Burke Lake Trail loop together close to 9 am. This small group stayed together for about 20 minutes.

Shereese and her sister got caught up in taking pictures and video. Kathleen and I got carried away walking and talking about her 40 years in health IT, sprinkled in with tidbits about the local botany. Our loop around the lake turned out to be very pleasant. Kathleen showed me how to spot poison ivy on the ground as well as how it vines up trees. She shared highlights from her career and thoughts about what she wants to focus on in her next chapter. At one point, we reached a fork in the road and looked at the map and decided to follow the lake shore. It was a beautiful stretch where monarch butterflies were congregating and a perfect spot to stop and take in the beauty around us.

We finished around 11 am, just in time for the next crew to arrive: Neelam, Brittany, and Lygeia. Although we experienced some cell phone reception issues at first, we still got off to a great start. We decided to walk the opposite way, in hopes of running in to Shereese and Toni (no luck). Our conversation ranged from entrepreneurship, to fast-tracking telehealth implementations, to being the Chief Health Officer of one’s home and all that comes with that responsibility. The women in health IT are so incredibly intelligent and insightful. It was a real pleasure to get to spend 4.7 miles of walking in beautiful nature with them.

(For those keeping track, that’s 9.4 miles of hiking for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but Sherees and Toni ended up walking 12 miles, because they took a different turn at that fork in the road I mentioned earlier.)

All in all, Sunday was a superb day.

Monday, I decided to take Juno to Washington D.C. and we found a comfortable spot to work and charge up at Union Market, near Gallaudet University. After a few hours, she and I toured the National Monuments and Memorials, including Jefferson, FDR, MLK, and Lincoln Memorials. I swear, by the end of this trip, Juno will be one of the most well-traveled dogs alive. We finished the day at the Navy Yard, and then headed back to camp. There was a massive thunderstorm that hit that evening, including flash flood warnings, so we just nestled in the camper and made it an early night.

Tuesday, was not so glamorous.

Challenge number two: The power was out on nearly all of our gear. I looked for the closest spot possible to recharge, which happened to be in a parking lot just outside a Mexican Restaurant in Fairfax Station. I did my best to stay incognito while working out of the hatchback of my 4Runner, with my computer plugged into its exterior outlet, accessing the internet through my phone’s tether. At least I had coffee.

This is the side of being on the road that isn’t so fun. I had a long list of tasks to accomplish that I was trying to reconcile with the resources available to me. With a healthy mix of trying to find strong cell service along with keeping my phone and computer charged, I had to get creative. Thankfully, that’s my strong suit, so although inconvenient, I found a way to make it work.

Wednesday I faced the same challenges, but had more experience. I had found more stores I could rely on for supplies (i.e. coffee!) and searched the map for places I could stretch the limits of working remotely. I found Great Falls National Park and took all my calls from that area.

I’m still trying to figure out why “Virginia is for Lovers,” especially since there seem to be so many battlegrounds in this state. But perhaps Virginia is for history lovers or for nature lovers—or even for Cicada lovers, because there are tons of them here—that would make more sense.