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The Trip from Hell to Atlanta
January 9, 2007
Okay, so both Richard and I work, we live 600 miles from either side of the family (my folks are in MI, his in PA), and with the two kids flying is just not a financial obligation we can shoulder. So we almost never just go "someplace". I am sure that if anyone is reading this who already has kids and lives far from family, they can relate. Coordinating vacation time with the school year and family obligations and visits to family means that not much goes on in that department. Plus, we already decided not to travel on major holiday travel weekends (with the possible exception of July 4th and Memorial/Labor Day), especially in the winter, because having a lot of cars on the road plus having insulin and dietary needs means that if a storm hits, we are dead in the water in a lot of ways. So we can't do that. Richard has a history conference to go to every January, which is when academic folk have their conferences, since college winter breaks last so long. So this year, it was in Atlanta, which is about as far away from us as our parents are. We decided to drive down there as a family and see the town while Richard did his conference interviews.
Oh man, were we in for it.
We left Thursday at 1 am, because it's better to travel at night so that the kids won't be cooped up in the car during their normal active hours. Unfortunately, it seems like it's better to leave in the mid afternoon as opposed to the middle of the night, because the kids didn't go back to sleep. So we were all literally up all night. Which isn't good.
We hit Nashville at 6 am, had a nice leisurely breakfast, then continued to Atlanta at a slow pace so that we could stop and the kids could run around a lot. We stopped at the Nickajack Reservoir and really enjoyed the bluebirds there. Then we stopped again for lunch about an hour from Atlanta. So far, so good.
When we arrived at the hotel, we all crashed except for Richard, and he went out and walked around and did his conferency things. So when he came back to the room at 5:15, we woke up and left.
First bad move: Downtown Atlanta shuts down at 5 pm daily, except for fancy sit-down restaurants. After all the McDonald's fare we were ready for subs or salads. We ended up at a place called Steak and Ale, which actually turned out to be okay, but we were so tired it just wasn't fun. Everyone else there was from the conference. When we got back to the room we crashed again, and then:
At three a.m., Daisy woke up and said "I have a headache."
I gave her some ibuprofen and we estimated that she had a fever.
Five minutes later, she threw up the ibuprofen (it was the only thing in her stomach, Thank God!). One set of bedclothes down.
She spent the rest of the night complaining about her headache, which I was actually pretty worried about, because it seemed like an odd symptom to me.
After a restless night, Richard went off to his interviews.
Daisy was passed out on the bed.
Griffin was bouncing off the walls! His blood sugar quickly went out of control, because he is used to physical activity in the morning. High blood sugar causes him to be hyperactive. We played hide and seek in the hotel room a million times, in between Daisy waking up and being really upset.
And then, when Richard came back for lunch and could have taken Griffin out for a walk, it started to pour rain, and didn't stop until he had to leave again for more interviews. Oh yeah, Richard brought back some Starburst, which is normally contraband because about two of those is worth a slice of bread, but I think he felt bad for us. Daisy sucked on one but still managed to throw it up, second set of bedclothes down (and the first weren't replaced yet, because no one in Atlanta has the English).
At about three pm, Daisy woke up and actually looked alive, so I asked if she would like to accompany us down to the lobby shop to get a beverage to drink (she was strictly gatorade, whereas Griffin had to have sugar free because his blood sugar was 400--I also gave him extra insulin). She obliged. In the lobby shop, she picked out her Gatorade, and Griffin picked out a Diet Mountain Dew. Well, he'd never had caffeine before. In his life. He almost has never had carbonated anything, either. Maybe a diet rootbeer or sprite, every once in a great while (they didn't have diet rootbeer, and he had already had a diet sprite). They don't really bottle Crystal Light, and we don't really carry the powder singles that much because usually water is fine. But the kid had been cramped up in a hotel room all day, after expecting to go to the zoo to see the panda bears. And plus, poor little Daisy had not had any fun at all.
So Griffin learned about caffeine. I didn't think it would really affect him.
But then, half an hour after he drank the stuff, without any warning, he got REALLY goofy. He started singing "zizz zizz zizz zizz zizz zizz" over and over an over again. Richard came back to the room, and I said "I'm sorry, he was 400, and I didn't know it would do this." I also made the unfortunate mistake of informing Griffin why he had such a buzz, and he thought it was great. "I LIKE CAFFEINE, CAN I HAVE SOME MORE?"
Oh my gosh.
So then it was already past five again by the time Richard came back, so we had to eat at an expensive place again, which turned out to be the Hard Rock Cafe. I think we were all pleased with the food except Daisy, who would only eat my french fries.
The highlight of the trip was when "YMCA" was played on the video at the HRC, and all the staff started dancing to it. And then we went and walked around Centennial Olympic Park, and I gave our leftover macaroni and cheese to a homeless guy.
So it wasn't all bad.
But we left the next morning at 10 am. On the way out of town, I tried to direct us toward Emory's campus, because I actually lived in Atlanta for a year before Richard and I were married, and I went to Emory for that year for the beginning of graduate school. But I couldn't find it. I didn't recognize any of the street names, and hadn't brought directions. So that was a bust.
We got home about 9 pm, and we were really glad to be home.
Because we didn't know at that point that another ice storm was coming.
But it turns out we didn't lose power this time.
Sheesh.
Too much happens to us. But I'm glad we're having another kid anyway. The more the merrier, that's what I always say.
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