The Good, the Bad & the Ugly – Part 2

The Bad

I think its true that time heals all wounds as it has been a few weeks now since we returned from our trip to my daughter’s wedding in Florida with the grand kids. At the time it seemed like a pretty traumatic experience for everyone of us but now after some time to think about things I seem to be able to pull more ‘funny’ things from my memory than the other not so fun things.

But over the course of the two weeks on the road I have to say it was no picnic for anyone during various parts of the trip. The long airplane flights from Alaska to Florida actually went pretty well for three of the four flights. The flights south went pretty smoothly with a little help from some prescribed medication for the kids to help them remain calm or sleep a bit of the way.

They were long flights with the leg from Anchorage to Seattle just over 4 ½ hours with a 5 hour layover (yeah that was real fun trying to keep them entertained). The Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Orlando was just a few minutes over 6 hours with our arrival just before 11 pm. Needless to say it was a long day with little real food to eat so by the time we arrived at our hotel there was a call to Domino’s Pizza after midnight for an evening meal. I will have to say it was really good and by the time everyone hit the rack to get a little much needed sleep moods had changed once again in a positive direction.

Over the next few days it was a mixture of moods as could be expected with young kids as the reminders of “youth” came back quickly with the continual comments of “You’re touching me!” or “Quit touching me!” mixed with the occasional “I don’t like you!” Ahhh . . . I seem to remember those times with my kids but it has been a long time.

For me it was a working vacation with repeated calls to my office, some with extended conversations to assist keeping things running smoothly back in Alaska. If we were at the hotel or in a place I could get away from everyone it was not too bad but there were times we would be driving from Orlando to Jacksonville Beach (approx. 2-3 hours) to visit my mama and brother’s family. Making our way to my daughter’s house in Ft. Walton Beach from Jacksonville Beach a day long drive of about 7 hours found the kids in a pretty tired and irritable mood. It seemed like we were stopping every few rest areas spaced about 30-40 miles apart to clean up something, to scold someone, or to calm everyone to let them get out and walk around for a few minutes to regain some composure. Those were the bad times and they seemed to drag on for hours.

For the upcoming “Ugly” blog in this series I will write about the total meltdown my granddaughter had two days before the wedding but she redeemed herself during the wedding as the flower girl. She was great and you would have thought she had some “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality after watching her over those several days.

The day before we flew home from Orlando we made the drive from Ft. Walton Beach (8-9 hours) was total chaos. I spent several hours on my cell phone with my office in Anchorage and every call my office gal Kelly made to me all she could hear was crying or screaming in the background. She could tell it was a trip through hell and as the day wore on she could hear it getting worse with each successive call at one point with my wife yelling at me to “Pull over RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!” so we could beat the kids. I’m kidding of course but she did want me to get to the side of the road right then but the problem was a Florida State Trooper waiting there with his radar going so I did not think it wise to pull off across from him to spank the kids with all of the recent murdered and missing kids in the news in Florida. I could see the headlines now . . . “Papa abuses grand kids on I-10 . . . News and video at 11”. It would have probably been caught on his in car camera and be on the next season of “Stupid videos” or COPS.

The over 6 ½ flight from Orlando to Seattle went great as we had the extra seat for my grandson (20 months) who did not share a lap with one of us. There were several trying moments at Seatac airport during our 4 hour layover with my granddaughter who was not too happy about anything but getting home. She and I made an ‘attitude’ trip to the restroom so I could scold her for being bad & obnoxious, when I returned several people nearby clapped that I took the time to correct the situation. Old time values still work if everyone was not so worried about someone accusing them of something or another.

We could all see the light at the end of the tunnel on our flight back to Anchorage in getting back home and into our own beds for a great night sleep since none of us really slept well during the whole trip.

Taylor and I shared our seats with her son who spent time on our laps squirming or standing up looking back over the seat and screaming “Nana” behind us. That was not so bad and I thought we were home free as we started our decent over the mountains around Anchorage.

My grandson had trouble popping his ears and refused to drink anything so it was not long before he started crying really hard. We were about 45 minutes till we landed when all of a sudden he started to gag and everything he had eaten in Seattle and on the plane was coming up and all over me. The ‘barf bag’ was filling up fast as I noticed the bits and pieces of his Chinese food mixed with a lot of rice and the pretzels were making me start to look for another bag as he did not seem to be going to stop anytime soon. My daughter who does not handle that well was starting to also gag and for a few seconds I thought it was going to be a “two fer” with her looking in the seat pockets for another bag. I felt sorry for the lady next to me as I was now covered in vomit trying to get up and make my way to the bathroom before my daughter started blowing chunks everywhere.

We went into one of those small lavatories in the rear of the plane where I started cleaning up everything as he continued to fill the barf bag. We finally seemed to be under control so I stripped off his shirt and cleaned it up hoping to remove the smell so as not to trigger another round. I pulled off my Hawaiian shirt and went outside to find my wife had gotten some clothes for us to put on so we could go back to our seats and land. Taylor finally came out of her bathroom and we changed clothes in the rear galley of the aircraft. It was kind of funny but there were not too many people laughing at the time in any of the seats around us.

We arrived in Anchorage around 8 pm and made our way to collect our bags to catch our ride home. We went outside to find things back to normal about 28 degrees. It felt great to be home wearing my shorts, no jacket breathing the cool fresh air.

My friend Scott picked us up and drove us home happy to give us back Gus, the dog as he had taken over his house and put stress on his wiener dogs and cats while we were away. My son came by shortly to pick up my granddaughter and told him we would be happy not to see her for a couple of weeks so everyone could get over the trauma of “vacation”.

Finally I was back in my Sleep Comfort bed, sleep number 35 for the first good nights sleep in a long time.

Would I take the grand kids on another road trip . . . been there . . . done that.

Ice