Thursday, August 27, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
The Wyoming...adventure
Last weekend we went to Cody, Wyoming for vacation and to see family. My Dads side is from Wyoming and so it is kind of my childhood playground. However, the trip turned into....an adventure.
We were meeting with my cousins the Smiths in Idaho because they were coming from Washington but they only had one driver and their trip is about 13 hours, ours is only 8. We decided to meet in Pocatello and have one of our 4 drivers (our car held me, Jason, Chandler, Rachel and my Dad) hop in their car to give my aunt a break. Unfortunately our journey didn't start til about 8:30 that night so when we met it was like 1 am. Everyone except Chan and Jason were really tired by the time we got to Rexburg. My Dad and Aunt decided they wanted to look for a hotel room for the night so that we didn't show up in Cody wiped out. But fate had other plans.
All the hotel rooms in Rexburg were full because it was graduation weekend. So we decide to carry on and have Chan and Jason drive the next 6 hours there.
Now if you know the area you know that to get to Cody from Idaho the shortest trip is through Yellowstone Park (I think I've been to Yellowstone at least 50 times, honestly.) A couple of miles outside West Yellowstone (that is a city and the gate entrance to the park) Dads van bent a rod. Something about it being on cruise control hitting a steep hill trying to accelerate too much or something. Dad decides to drive into the city and see if we can get a hotel room for the night and figure out what to do with the car in the morning as it is about 4 am now. No luck again, every hotel, and note there are 75 in the city, is full. My poor aunt went everywhere looking while Dad called triple A to see about getting a tow.
Triple A tells us that our towing range is 100 miles and we were at 120 miles from Cody so we would need to get closer or pay the extra fees for the tow. We decide to sleep on it. So from about 5 am to 8 am everyone (so thats 5 in our car and 5 in my Aunts car) sleeps in their seats. No fun. At 8 am my Aunt wakes up our car, she couldn't sleep) and we drive into Yellowstone praying the car will make it at least 20 miles. It makes it about 50 and then the engine quits. So Dad waited for a tow truck and the rest of us pile in my Aunts car and go to Cody.
While we are there we go to a canal that is at the ranch with some of my cousins that live on the ranch in Cody. This canal is a fun place because it has what is called a weir. That is where the water goes under a bridge over a cement bottom and then drops like a water slide. Jason has never done this before and I forget to give him the run down on how he is supposed to go down. I'm out of the water on the side taking pictures. He decides to go down this little water slide standing up! Any sane person in my opinion would have sat down to go through. As Jason hits the bottom of the slide he hits a part of the cement that has been beaten away by the water and is now rough and broken. He completely eats it tumbling through the rest of the 'ride'. Poor kid when he gets out he has gashed his hand and seriously scraped his knee, down to bone. Good thing he was last to go, my little cousins have never heard the words that came out of his mouth.
Now the trip is over it's time to leave and we have to figure out how to get the van home. Let me explain the van. It is an Astro which is a equipped with a V8 and truck frame. It's a truck with a van body really. Dad calls up Uhual to rent a truck and a flatbed to take the van home. But it's Wyoming and the only truck large enough to move the flatbed in 100 miles is a moving van. Which only has 3 seats in the cab. Instead of renting another car Jason and I just sit in the back of the van, up on the flatbed, with the windows open because we can't get A/C in a broken car, for 8 hours. Not so bad except when we went through construction, which blew dust and gravel into the car and in the rain. That felt good at first but then combined with the construction dust and no real ventilation it became miserable. By then end of the 8 hours I felt like I had been in a box hauled around by UPS.
I'll post pictures up later.
We were meeting with my cousins the Smiths in Idaho because they were coming from Washington but they only had one driver and their trip is about 13 hours, ours is only 8. We decided to meet in Pocatello and have one of our 4 drivers (our car held me, Jason, Chandler, Rachel and my Dad) hop in their car to give my aunt a break. Unfortunately our journey didn't start til about 8:30 that night so when we met it was like 1 am. Everyone except Chan and Jason were really tired by the time we got to Rexburg. My Dad and Aunt decided they wanted to look for a hotel room for the night so that we didn't show up in Cody wiped out. But fate had other plans.
All the hotel rooms in Rexburg were full because it was graduation weekend. So we decide to carry on and have Chan and Jason drive the next 6 hours there.
Now if you know the area you know that to get to Cody from Idaho the shortest trip is through Yellowstone Park (I think I've been to Yellowstone at least 50 times, honestly.) A couple of miles outside West Yellowstone (that is a city and the gate entrance to the park) Dads van bent a rod. Something about it being on cruise control hitting a steep hill trying to accelerate too much or something. Dad decides to drive into the city and see if we can get a hotel room for the night and figure out what to do with the car in the morning as it is about 4 am now. No luck again, every hotel, and note there are 75 in the city, is full. My poor aunt went everywhere looking while Dad called triple A to see about getting a tow.
Triple A tells us that our towing range is 100 miles and we were at 120 miles from Cody so we would need to get closer or pay the extra fees for the tow. We decide to sleep on it. So from about 5 am to 8 am everyone (so thats 5 in our car and 5 in my Aunts car) sleeps in their seats. No fun. At 8 am my Aunt wakes up our car, she couldn't sleep) and we drive into Yellowstone praying the car will make it at least 20 miles. It makes it about 50 and then the engine quits. So Dad waited for a tow truck and the rest of us pile in my Aunts car and go to Cody.
While we are there we go to a canal that is at the ranch with some of my cousins that live on the ranch in Cody. This canal is a fun place because it has what is called a weir. That is where the water goes under a bridge over a cement bottom and then drops like a water slide. Jason has never done this before and I forget to give him the run down on how he is supposed to go down. I'm out of the water on the side taking pictures. He decides to go down this little water slide standing up! Any sane person in my opinion would have sat down to go through. As Jason hits the bottom of the slide he hits a part of the cement that has been beaten away by the water and is now rough and broken. He completely eats it tumbling through the rest of the 'ride'. Poor kid when he gets out he has gashed his hand and seriously scraped his knee, down to bone. Good thing he was last to go, my little cousins have never heard the words that came out of his mouth.
Now the trip is over it's time to leave and we have to figure out how to get the van home. Let me explain the van. It is an Astro which is a equipped with a V8 and truck frame. It's a truck with a van body really. Dad calls up Uhual to rent a truck and a flatbed to take the van home. But it's Wyoming and the only truck large enough to move the flatbed in 100 miles is a moving van. Which only has 3 seats in the cab. Instead of renting another car Jason and I just sit in the back of the van, up on the flatbed, with the windows open because we can't get A/C in a broken car, for 8 hours. Not so bad except when we went through construction, which blew dust and gravel into the car and in the rain. That felt good at first but then combined with the construction dust and no real ventilation it became miserable. By then end of the 8 hours I felt like I had been in a box hauled around by UPS.
I'll post pictures up later.
Jasons hospital scare
The last couple of months have been hard. I have a hard time writing when I don't think I have anything fun to post.
The business is wobbly right now, we had a couple of fraud charges come in over the internet that, coupled with some big equipment purchases we had to make, has created a ripple of being behind on money. What a pain in the A that is-many hard lessons from that. Things are slowly turning around but it amazes me how easy it is to get into a hole and how long it takes to get out of it.
You may have seen my facebook status about Jason being in the hospital over the fourth. That was a crappy weekend, Jason was having stomach pain on Monday and by Wednesday it had progressed so much that he was doubled over in pain. By 4 am that morning he woke me up and said he needed to go to the hospital. Well we get him in there and the doctor gives him morphine, does an xray and tell us he thinks he sees intestinal blockage. They give him an enema and it helps but it doesnt fix it he is still in pain. So then they do a cat scan worried its something serious but that comes back clean so they do bloodwork and that doesnt pull anything up either. 7 hours into all this they tell us they dont know what it is and to take percocet and come back if it doesnt go away in a couple of days.
Thankfully it went away about 2 days later but we still don't know what it was. It was terrifying sitting there watching my husband writhe in pain and not be able to help him or help the pain. Go prescription pain killers.
You may have seen my facebook status about Jason being in the hospital over the fourth. That was a crappy weekend, Jason was having stomach pain on Monday and by Wednesday it had progressed so much that he was doubled over in pain. By 4 am that morning he woke me up and said he needed to go to the hospital. Well we get him in there and the doctor gives him morphine, does an xray and tell us he thinks he sees intestinal blockage. They give him an enema and it helps but it doesnt fix it he is still in pain. So then they do a cat scan worried its something serious but that comes back clean so they do bloodwork and that doesnt pull anything up either. 7 hours into all this they tell us they dont know what it is and to take percocet and come back if it doesnt go away in a couple of days.
Thankfully it went away about 2 days later but we still don't know what it was. It was terrifying sitting there watching my husband writhe in pain and not be able to help him or help the pain. Go prescription pain killers.
Jason, in a gown, with morphine.
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