Last Summer at the Oregon Coast

DAY ONE

PMS sets in…. We are running late this morning because Hubby cannot download the maps to his laptop in time. But, hey, that’s okay….who needs maps? We decide to leave home without the maps…

We get to New Plymouth (40 minutes into the 10 hour trip) and J asks if we’re there yet. We get to Ontario (50 minutes into the 10 hour trip) and H screams that she sees our hotel. Boy, this is going to be a long car ride….

A couple hours later H says her tummy hurts and she is moaning. We pull over at the sand dunes to eat some lunch and the wind blows sand into H's eyes. Why are we going on vacation again?

We continue on and are now in the middle of nowhere when H yells she has to poop “really, really bad.” So we stop at this hole-in-the-wall arcade place (seriously, in the middle of the desert) so she can do her duty.

Yes! We finally arrive in Klamath Falls. We take the kids down to the hotel pool and J promptly goes underwater unexpectedly and comes up coughing and crying. The kids are so tired. So I take them upstairs to our room and give them a bath. As H’s walking out of the bathroom (looking down), she rams her head right into the bathroom doorknob.

After that ordeal, I realize our hotel room only has one bed. So I call for a roll-away bed. The bed comes and is all springs and lumps. You have got to be kidding me. There was no way anyone would sleep on that thing. So J and I slept in the queen bed vertically, Daddy slept at our feet horizontally, and H slept in a chair next to the bed. Our room was, of course, right next to a flight of concrete stairs. Sleep did not come easy… Maybe tomorrow will be better….

DAY TWO

PMS has turned into full blown MS….To our good fortune, the kids wake up bright and shiny at 5:30 am. As I am putting my contact lenses in, I notice one of my contacts has ripped in half. I don’t have any extras with me. So now I have to wear my regular glasses the rest of the trip (with my non-prescription sunglasses smashed attractively over the top of my eye glasses).

J announces that he can’t poop. He says he tries and tries, but it won’t come out….Note to self….find childrens laxative at the drug store today….J also announces that he is “all done with the hotel and wants to go back home.” Why are we going on vacation again?

Next we meet the extended family for breakfast at Elmers. The kids eat pancakes. About 10 minutes later, H is complaining that her throat hurts. I look over at J and he has facial hives. Lovely! They must have ingested eggs… I run outside and am trying to find the one suitcase in the van that has the Benedryl. Naturally, it’s the last suitcase I rip open. I run back inside and administer the meds. Now, H has hives and starts coughing and says she’s going to throw up. I’m ready to scrap this whole trip and go home.

Okay, time to buck up and finish the day with the family. So we drive downtown to the annual Klamath Falls carnival/parade. We walk through the parking lot and onto the parade route. A lovely volunteer hands the kids plastic kazoos and stickers. Daddy realizes we forgot the stroller, so he runs back to the parking lot to get it. I continue on with the kids. Suddenly, J stops walking and pulls frantically on my arm. I look down to find him choking on something. I whack him on the back a few times. Nothing... Panic sets in. I yell for someone to help me. Hubby’s brother, R, runs over and does the Heimlich maneuver on J. Nothing... I turn around and see people running towards us. I hear a policeman radio “Approximately 4 year old male. Code blue.” I hear sirens. A bystander picks up J’s kazoo off the street and notices a little round piece of wax paper-type disk missing. We assume this is what he has inhaled. Finally, on round three of the Heimlich, J sort of coughs and takes a breath. The paramedics were there within 3 minutes. They loaded him up in an ambulance and off to the ER we go. After a thorough exam, x-rays, and such, they decided he probably swallowed the paper disk and it would take care of itself. Why are we going on vacation again?

We then drive to Aunt Barb’s to pick up H. I kind of forgot about her during this whole escapade. Apparently Grandma picked her up and she waved bye-bye to the ambulance as her brother was whisked away.

We are at Aunt Barb’s for a few minutes when Uncle Sonny decides to give the kids rides on his ATV around the farm. Surprisingly, H wants to go. Daddy lets her go and she comes back a few minutes later...hysterically sobbing. Her skinny little bare leg had slipped down and touched the firing hot exhaust pipe. So she now has a beautiful burn to care for.

I’ve had enough. We leave to find a new hotel in Roseburg. We are trying to get to this hotel (without a map, of course) and Hubby is making numerous lane changes, accompanied with gas/brake/gas/brake actions. Then a little sports car filled with teenage boys zooms up beside us. They unroll their windows and someone screams, “Learn how to ****ing drive!” Oh goody, new words for the kids to learn….

Did I mention J is still constipated?

We finally arrive at the hotel. It is much nicer than the last one. But Hubby is paranoid that those creeps are going to come and assault our van while we are sleeping. He keeps looking out the window…

We finally fall asleep. J and I are sleeping together in one bed (mostly because I’m still recovering from his code blue incident and I need him next to me) and Daddy and H are sleeping in the other bed. About 3:00 am, Daddy starts screaming at the top of his lungs (literally). He is having a horrific nightmare. The rest of us fly awake out of bed and I am yelling across the dark room for him to wake up. The kids start crying and J says, “Daddy, you’re scaring me…stop it…” (I find out later, he had been dreaming that those creeps had come to assault him and our van).

DAY THREE

Hubby and I wake up the next morning feeling refreshed and full of life. We pack up the van and drive to Bandon where we have reservations at a beautiful hidden jewel…The Gorman Motel. (Warning….do not ever stay there! But if you do not heed my warning, be sure to bring a can of indoor bug killer and a couple flyswatters.)

Upon our arrival, we meet the lovely Mrs. Gorman. She looks like a sweet old lady, but looks were deceiving in this case. Let’s just say that she….has some issues….

We lug our suitcases into the room and close the door. That’s when we notice that someone (Mrs. Gorman, no doubt) has ripped the chain lock off the inside of our room door. There is also a small sign that says “Do NOT lock the deadbolt.” Hmmm, what is wrong with this picture? I, of course, promptly lock the deadbolt.

The room has lots of windows and the sun had been shining in all day, making the room very hot and humid. Only one window actually opens. So we open it and then walk out our back patio door to take a walk on the beach. Upon our return, we put our key in the back patio door, but it wouldn’t unlock. Hubby tries and tries to no avail. We walk around to the front room door, but the key wouldn’t unlock our front door either. Oh great….we are going to have to tell Mrs. Gorman. We quickly play “rock, paper, scissors” and Hubby loses and has to go talk to her.

Mrs. Gorman and Hubby walk back to our room. She is grumbling something about “didn’t you see the sign not to lock the doors?” She opens the door with her master key and helps herself inside our room. She is looking around (probably to see what other crimes we have committed). She immediately notices we have opened the window (apparently that’s another violation). She promptly walks across the room, without saying anything, and shuts the window. As she turns around, Hubby makes the mistake of asking if the room has air conditioning or a fan. She utters a sarcastic laugh and says “the air conditioning is out there!” and points out the window. Nice….. No air conditioning, no fan, and apparently, we are not allowed to open the window. This is a sweet motel… Did I mention our room is right next to the ice machine? Did I mention there were a group of drunken men outside our door in the middle of the night? Or that I could hear the people talking above us because the walls and floors were so thin?

DAY FOUR

Hubby wakes up at 6:30 am and leaves the hotel with H to go buy a fishing license. That should be easy enough….. He stops at a local bait/coffee shop, but they will not accept his debit card (which is the only form of payment he has with him right now). They advise him try the shop next door on the other side of the public outhouse. But they did not sell licenses for only 3 days and, oh yeah, they don’t take debit cards either. They tell him to go to Tru Value. Well, Tru Value has 3 day licenses, but don’t take debit cards either.

Hubby is about ready to lose his mind at this point. So he changes courses and decides to go buy a coffee. He needed some serious caffeine at this point. The coffee girl makes the coffee and hands it to him as she mentions, oh yeah, they don’t take debit cards either!!!

At this point, Hubby considers slitting his wrists. The girl tells him to drive to the local grocery store and get cash back from his debit card. But, naturally, he has to purchase something first. They go inside the store and H quickly spots the clearance section of Valentines candy. Daddy has lost all sense of reason at this point and quickly takes a couple boxes of candy hearts for $0.33 up to the checkout counter. Then the grocery lady tells him his credit card is denied. He realizes she ran it as a credit card, not a debit card. So then she ran it as a debit and gave him a minimal amount of cash back; still not enough money to purchase a fishing license.

So Hubby drove back to the coffee store and purchases the cold coffee with cash. Then he came back to the hotel 39 hours later…….still without a fishing license….

Did I mention J is still constipated?

Daddy decides to start loading up our van so we can get out of this ****hole as soon as possible. As he rounds the corner, he sees Mrs. Gorman, with a garden hose, randomly spraying down all the vehicles in her parking lot. (Remember…I warned you she has issues). Hubby just stands back and watches her in pure bewilderment.

After our van has been thoroughly soaked by Mrs. Gorman and her freakish garden hose, we pack up and head out for Newport. We decide to stop at the Oregon Hatfield Aquarium. Hubby takes J into the public restroom and a few minutes later, Hubby comes out, looking like he’s been scarred for life. Daddy said J pushed out a poop that he swears must have been over two feet long. I was so proud, relieved and excited. It’s kind of scary…the things that excite me, now that I’m a mom.

We leave the aquarium and the kids are getting hungry. We stop at this quaint “family dining” establishment. We try not to notice we are the only patrons there. Hubby starts to order a burger when the waitress interrupts him only to inform him they are out of hamburger meat! Incredulous, Hubby skips his order and asks for chicken strips for the kids. But the waitress (completely straight-faced and non-apologetic) says they are also out of chicken. At this point, I start to snicker out loud. I start looking around, thinking maybe we’re on Candid Camera or something. Finally, we settle on a “small” order of “Idaho Potato French Fries” to go. It takes them about 20 minutes to prepare and then we get the bill for $5.00. Apparently, the high cost of French fries is due to the increase of gasoline costs related to shipments of potatoes from Idaho.

We move on and settle into our new hotel room. Hubby and I actually sleep in a bed together and the kids fall asleep together on the hide-a-bed in the couch. We all have a peaceful night of sleep…

DAY FIVE

H wakes early and climbs into bed with us. Not wanting to be kicked for the next hour, I get out of my bed and climb into the other bed with J. I am only lying there a few minutes before I feel my pajamas becoming warm….and wet….very, very wet. I jump out of bed and peel back the covers to find that J has peed the bed….alot. Sick! I had no idea his bladder could hold that much pee……but then again, I guess it didn’t hold it! Of course, this would be the only hotel room we are going to stay more than one night in. So I have to call housekeeping to bring up new linens. Now I need to find somewhere to launder J’s pajamas, not to mention my own.

We then take off to find a Walmart because we desperately need a bag of ice, live fish bait, and grapes. (You know…those things that are on every Walmart shopper’s list). We soon find a Walmart and I run inside with H, who promptly decides she needed to poop. After that successful event, I notice I can’t find the produce department. I stop and ask a friendly customer service representative who replies that they don’t have a produce department. I ask if they have a meat department. She says, “No. We don’t carry anything fresh here.” Well, that’s just great…….Oh well, at least I can get a bag of ice. I stand in line and get to the front, only to be told they just sold their last bag of ice. Are you kidding me? Out of ice? Does anyone else find this ridiculous? At that point, I was glad H had pooped and stunk up their restroom…

I come back to the van, dejected and hopeless. Why, oh why, are we torturing ourselves like this? Then Hubby says he needs to buy disks for his digital camera. So we then go to (no kidding) five different stores looking for these specific digital disks for his camera. Finally, we find them…

DAY SIX

Hubby wakes and leaves the room quietly to do some early morning scenic photography of Newport. He is really excited. He comes back a couple hours later while I’m packing up. He said the sunrise was absolutely brilliant and was thrilled with the results of his photos. I was excited for him. He really wanted an opportunity to do that. He asks us all to sit down on the bed and he wants to share his photos with us. But as he struggles with the camera, he realizes it has deleted every single photo he took that morning.

Okay, let’s not despair. It’s time to go crabbing at the dock. This should be fun. We park the van and unload our incredible amount of gear. Hubby forgot to mention that it would be just a little over one mile from the van to get to the spot he wanted to crab at. No worries….. I can handle this. We begin the long journey of lugging all of our crap and two children (who happen to be cold and hungry again) all the way down to the end of the dock. We finally get there and unload everything. The wind is blowing like mad.

Suddenly a teenage girl taps me on the shoulder and asks if we happen to own a blue Sienna minivan back at the parking lot. Okay, this cannot be good…. I said yes and she told me that someone (I will not mention his name) had not closed/latched the lid to the cargo carrier on the roof of the van. She said the wind was blowing so hard that it was bending the top back and she said she saw a stroller inside (amongst other gear) and figured it might belong to us, since we were the only stupid ones out on the dock with small children. That’s fantastic….. I decide to hike back to the van to take care of it before our stuff gets ripped off and H wants to go with me.

We walk and walk and walk. H announces she has to poop. I ignore her. We walk and walk and walk. We finally get to the van. I can see other people pointing at the cargo carrier and smiling. But I don’t think this is very funny. I open the van door and tell H to stay inside while I struggle to retrieve the contents of the carrier and close it up. Then I come back and open the van door to find H sitting on the little port-a-potty in the back of the van…taking a poop. Oh my, this should be fun to clean up. Our van smells real pretty now, too.

After awhile, I see Daddy and J coming down the dock towards the van. J is excitedly running towards us, when he catches his shoe on a wood plank, falls, and skids across the dock. Now he is crying. Daddy tries to pick him up and coax him to the van. What a day….But, hey, at least Daddy caught a nice crab…..

DAY SEVEN

Hallelujah! We are going home today! We borrow a large bellhop cart and take our luggage down to the van. After unloading, I roll the empty cart up the handicap ramp and leave it at the top of the stairs. As I’m walking away, I hear a “thud” and turn around to see the bellhop cart heading down the stairs unmanned. I gracefully fly over to it and calmly grab onto it and guide it safely back to the lobby. I make sure not to make eye contact with anyone in the lobby…

We are finally home. And it will be a long time before we go on a vacation again… :0