My Exciting Trip to the Northwest
This is a summary of my recent trip to Seattle, with bold keywords for those of us (e.g. me) with attention span problems. You ought to be able to read just the key phrases and get the basic idea without reading all the rest of the details.
My wife and kids and I flew to Seattle on Friday. We flew because driving that distance is a pain, and I was afraid of taking that extra time away from work. We went to be part of a family reunion with included my entire set of siblings and their kids and my parents.
We arrived at my brother Jim's house on Fox Island on Friday night and slept in a tent on their lawn. There were enough people there that we didn't all fit in the house. Jim has a septic tank, and his wife Julia was worried about filling the tank (which is designed for 4 bedrooms worth of people, not 6 or 7 entire families) so they rented one of those port-a-potties.
Jim's house is very nice. Big, fancy, expensive, on big fancy expensive property overlooking, um, whatever body of water it overlooks.
Saturday was the lowest tide point of the year at fox island, so we went down to the bridge to walk around and look at uncovered animals that are usually covered in water. Cool stuff. There were crabs and starfish and sunstars and all kinds of stuff. I found some real hermit crabs in spiral shells in a little pile under a rock. Very cool.
After the low-tide walk, we climbed on a chartered boat and went for a trip up to Blake Island. The boat ride and island were fun. The captain (Jerry) was nice and interesting, and the boat was cool, and we had some good food and fun. I tended to avoid the big hikes and things, though, in favor of watching the kids. I got too much sun.
Sunday, some of us walked down to the semi-private beach by Jim's house (steep climb, rocky beach, but cool when the tide is out). We wandered the beach for hours, collecting mounds of little crabs and chasing geoducks into the sand over and over (which is surprisingly fun) and just generally finding funky creatures everywhere. We figured out how to spot clams and dug a bunch up with our hands. Digging up my own clams is a first for me. I got way too much sun and we eventually climbed back up the hill to the house. By later that night, I had a pretty bad sunburn.
That night, my sister made a ton of different kinds of pasta and Julia and I grilled up the clams we had gotten from the beach. I had a hard time cleaning them up, so they all had sand in them when we were done, so I pulled them out of their shells and cleaned them off, and a bunch of people had some. I started to feel sick, so I only took a few bites of clams, and then tried to have some pasta, but that didn't taste too good, either.
A few hours later, I was feeling really bad. I ended up with very bad indigestion and diarrhea that night, and slept only in little bits of 20 minutes at a time. I felt absolutely horrible for about 16 hours, with the standard "I am dying" or "I wish I were dead" phases here and there.
Monday, the family all left to do some other stuff (a few had gone home, and a bunch of the rest went to the zoo and aquarium), but I stayed home to be sick. My nice parents drove into town and got me some pepcid, because I decided that at least a part of the pain I was in was pure stomach acid-related. I took some Maalox first, and before my parents even got back, I was feeling much better. After a while, I was finally able to sleep for a few hours, which was heavenly after a long time not being able to sleep. My family was very nice and helpful during this ordeal, offering me things and helping me get as comfortable as I could be.
By the time my family got back Monday night, I was feeling pretty good. We had chili that night, so I just had a few bites and some crackers and that was fine. I'm still not sure exactly what happened. Maybe it was a reaction to the sunburn. I have certainly gotten sick from bad sunburns before, but we looked around and the symptoms didn't exactly match any heat-related problems we could find. It felt more like food poisoning (exacerbated by my general stomach acid problems which flared up presumably because of bacteria or lack of food or whatever), but what had I eaten that nobody else had? Nothing. It couldn't have been the clams, because the symptoms came on immediately after I ate them, and plenty of people had a lot more clams than I did. Unfortunately, the taste of clams was in my mouth the whole time I was sick, so I'm afraid I'll be put off of clams for a long time.
Tuesday, my wife and the kids and I drove into Seattle. Jen got up really early that morning and hitched a ride with my brother Jim who was flying out, and she rented a car for a couple of days. Jen and the kids and my sister-in-law Robin and her kids went to the Pacific Science Center and I went to visit my pals Syz and Silestra. Silestra met us at Syz's office and we went and had Pho, which was great. That was, I think, my first time having Pho, and I'll certainly do it again.
I picked up my family (I'm leaving out various adventures here and there - just imagine all kinds of complications and various characters coming in and out of the story) and we went home and had chicken/veggie kebabs for dinner.
Ada showed me some weird clear blister-looking things on her toes and said she had some on her belly, too. I thought they were warts or something.
Tuesday night was very cold. After a few hours in the tent, we all (except Alex, who had a couple of blankets) moved into the house and slept on the family room floor. By this time, most of my family had gone home anyway, so the house was more empty. Ada had a rough night, tossing and turning and making pathetic noises.
Wednesday morning we were ready to drive into town, hang out at the art museum, and then drop off the rental car and fly home, when we realized that Ada was covered in red dots. Sure enough, Chicken Pox. Yowza. In full swing. We talked it over for a few minutes and decided it would be bad to sneak her onto the plane and pretend we weren't exposing everyone on the plane to an infectious disease. So, we scrambled to find a way to get Ada home. Jen and I both needed to be back in Utah for work, so we couldn't just stay there for a week to wait it out (and Julia wasn't offering - her kids haven't had chicken pox yet). We tried to arrange to get a one-way rental extension of our rental car. This turned out to be nearly impossible. It's amazing how unhelpful car rental places are sometimes. We eventually figured we could just drop off the car and get a brand new one one-way, and it would cost about $300+ for Jen to drive Ada home. We canceled Jen and Ada's plane tickets (apparently, the ticket price itself is reusable in the future, which is good), but were really dreading the cost.
Jim and Julia have a car (a Mazda) that's been sitting in their driveway for 6 months collecting dust. The battery was dead, and they couldn't find the key (after looking pretty hard for a while the day before, for other reasons). So, Julia called a locksmith who drove out and made new keys (for $80), and she loaned us the car to get Jen and Ada home. We got a new battery for the car ($65), took it in for a lube ($25), and off went Jen and Ada. This was about 3pm PST. Alex and Mateo and I had our flight still scheduled at 7:30, but I had nothing better to do, so we drove straight to the airport (got there around 4:15) and just sat around for a bunch of hours, waiting for the flight. Mateo was a delightful child, entertaining himself and holding my hand when he needed to and being funny and pleasant and good. Alex just stuck his nose in his GBA and only looked up when we got on the plane.
So, anyway, I'm home, and Alex and Mateo are with me, but Jen's driving home in the Mazda with Ada the Speckled Girl. Jen called a little while ago and she was about halfway home. She'll probably be home around noon tomorrow.
And that's my crazy somewhat abbreviated story. It's amazing how much stuff I'm leaving out, like the lost cell phone, the call to poison control, the whole Mazda key story, some good stuff that probably happened at some point when I was too dead to notice, and the various plans and actions of my siblings over the weekend. But this story is already too long, and I'm hoping to sell the movie rights at some point to someone other than Peter Jackson. So, that's pretty much it.
The End.
My wife and kids and I flew to Seattle on Friday. We flew because driving that distance is a pain, and I was afraid of taking that extra time away from work. We went to be part of a family reunion with included my entire set of siblings and their kids and my parents.
We arrived at my brother Jim's house on Fox Island on Friday night and slept in a tent on their lawn. There were enough people there that we didn't all fit in the house. Jim has a septic tank, and his wife Julia was worried about filling the tank (which is designed for 4 bedrooms worth of people, not 6 or 7 entire families) so they rented one of those port-a-potties.
Jim's house is very nice. Big, fancy, expensive, on big fancy expensive property overlooking, um, whatever body of water it overlooks.
Saturday was the lowest tide point of the year at fox island, so we went down to the bridge to walk around and look at uncovered animals that are usually covered in water. Cool stuff. There were crabs and starfish and sunstars and all kinds of stuff. I found some real hermit crabs in spiral shells in a little pile under a rock. Very cool.
After the low-tide walk, we climbed on a chartered boat and went for a trip up to Blake Island. The boat ride and island were fun. The captain (Jerry) was nice and interesting, and the boat was cool, and we had some good food and fun. I tended to avoid the big hikes and things, though, in favor of watching the kids. I got too much sun.
Sunday, some of us walked down to the semi-private beach by Jim's house (steep climb, rocky beach, but cool when the tide is out). We wandered the beach for hours, collecting mounds of little crabs and chasing geoducks into the sand over and over (which is surprisingly fun) and just generally finding funky creatures everywhere. We figured out how to spot clams and dug a bunch up with our hands. Digging up my own clams is a first for me. I got way too much sun and we eventually climbed back up the hill to the house. By later that night, I had a pretty bad sunburn.
That night, my sister made a ton of different kinds of pasta and Julia and I grilled up the clams we had gotten from the beach. I had a hard time cleaning them up, so they all had sand in them when we were done, so I pulled them out of their shells and cleaned them off, and a bunch of people had some. I started to feel sick, so I only took a few bites of clams, and then tried to have some pasta, but that didn't taste too good, either.
A few hours later, I was feeling really bad. I ended up with very bad indigestion and diarrhea that night, and slept only in little bits of 20 minutes at a time. I felt absolutely horrible for about 16 hours, with the standard "I am dying" or "I wish I were dead" phases here and there.
Monday, the family all left to do some other stuff (a few had gone home, and a bunch of the rest went to the zoo and aquarium), but I stayed home to be sick. My nice parents drove into town and got me some pepcid, because I decided that at least a part of the pain I was in was pure stomach acid-related. I took some Maalox first, and before my parents even got back, I was feeling much better. After a while, I was finally able to sleep for a few hours, which was heavenly after a long time not being able to sleep. My family was very nice and helpful during this ordeal, offering me things and helping me get as comfortable as I could be.
By the time my family got back Monday night, I was feeling pretty good. We had chili that night, so I just had a few bites and some crackers and that was fine. I'm still not sure exactly what happened. Maybe it was a reaction to the sunburn. I have certainly gotten sick from bad sunburns before, but we looked around and the symptoms didn't exactly match any heat-related problems we could find. It felt more like food poisoning (exacerbated by my general stomach acid problems which flared up presumably because of bacteria or lack of food or whatever), but what had I eaten that nobody else had? Nothing. It couldn't have been the clams, because the symptoms came on immediately after I ate them, and plenty of people had a lot more clams than I did. Unfortunately, the taste of clams was in my mouth the whole time I was sick, so I'm afraid I'll be put off of clams for a long time.
Tuesday, my wife and the kids and I drove into Seattle. Jen got up really early that morning and hitched a ride with my brother Jim who was flying out, and she rented a car for a couple of days. Jen and the kids and my sister-in-law Robin and her kids went to the Pacific Science Center and I went to visit my pals Syz and Silestra. Silestra met us at Syz's office and we went and had Pho, which was great. That was, I think, my first time having Pho, and I'll certainly do it again.
I picked up my family (I'm leaving out various adventures here and there - just imagine all kinds of complications and various characters coming in and out of the story) and we went home and had chicken/veggie kebabs for dinner.
Ada showed me some weird clear blister-looking things on her toes and said she had some on her belly, too. I thought they were warts or something.
Tuesday night was very cold. After a few hours in the tent, we all (except Alex, who had a couple of blankets) moved into the house and slept on the family room floor. By this time, most of my family had gone home anyway, so the house was more empty. Ada had a rough night, tossing and turning and making pathetic noises.
Wednesday morning we were ready to drive into town, hang out at the art museum, and then drop off the rental car and fly home, when we realized that Ada was covered in red dots. Sure enough, Chicken Pox. Yowza. In full swing. We talked it over for a few minutes and decided it would be bad to sneak her onto the plane and pretend we weren't exposing everyone on the plane to an infectious disease. So, we scrambled to find a way to get Ada home. Jen and I both needed to be back in Utah for work, so we couldn't just stay there for a week to wait it out (and Julia wasn't offering - her kids haven't had chicken pox yet). We tried to arrange to get a one-way rental extension of our rental car. This turned out to be nearly impossible. It's amazing how unhelpful car rental places are sometimes. We eventually figured we could just drop off the car and get a brand new one one-way, and it would cost about $300+ for Jen to drive Ada home. We canceled Jen and Ada's plane tickets (apparently, the ticket price itself is reusable in the future, which is good), but were really dreading the cost.
Jim and Julia have a car (a Mazda) that's been sitting in their driveway for 6 months collecting dust. The battery was dead, and they couldn't find the key (after looking pretty hard for a while the day before, for other reasons). So, Julia called a locksmith who drove out and made new keys (for $80), and she loaned us the car to get Jen and Ada home. We got a new battery for the car ($65), took it in for a lube ($25), and off went Jen and Ada. This was about 3pm PST. Alex and Mateo and I had our flight still scheduled at 7:30, but I had nothing better to do, so we drove straight to the airport (got there around 4:15) and just sat around for a bunch of hours, waiting for the flight. Mateo was a delightful child, entertaining himself and holding my hand when he needed to and being funny and pleasant and good. Alex just stuck his nose in his GBA and only looked up when we got on the plane.
So, anyway, I'm home, and Alex and Mateo are with me, but Jen's driving home in the Mazda with Ada the Speckled Girl. Jen called a little while ago and she was about halfway home. She'll probably be home around noon tomorrow.
And that's my crazy somewhat abbreviated story. It's amazing how much stuff I'm leaving out, like the lost cell phone, the call to poison control, the whole Mazda key story, some good stuff that probably happened at some point when I was too dead to notice, and the various plans and actions of my siblings over the weekend. But this story is already too long, and I'm hoping to sell the movie rights at some point to someone other than Peter Jackson. So, that's pretty much it.
The End.