When I last left you, we'd finished three full days of our road trip form Texas to Oregon. We'd been to the Grand Canyon, seem more of west Texas and New Mexico than any person needs to, and had arrived, exhausted at a sad Motel 6 in the sad desert town of Barstow, California.
I'm not sure what strange voodoo is going on in Barstow but I have yet to meet someone that had fond memories of it. Then again, after hours of desert and desert and more desert, Barstow seemed like, well, an oasis of Del Tacos and Wal-Marts and gas stations. But it is, in fact, where our Great Adventure seems to take a turn.
August 4th--Day 4 (Also our 14th wedding anniversary)
7:24 am. Local time
Barstow, California
Katherine takes a nose-dive off the bed, hits the end table and ends up with a mouth full of blood (cut lip inside).
Then the electricity goes off.
Time to get out of Barstow.
_________
Our morning started out with Katherine falling off the bed and hitting, what we thought at the time, the corner of her mouth. There was a lot of bleeding, as often happens with mouth injuries. She cried and she threw up. At the time, I was certain the throwing up was because she was so upset. It took about 10 minutes to calm her down and then she played happily in the bathtub. We thought that was that.
Of course, that wasn't that at all.
9:47 pm local time
Mohave Desert. Again.
I'm in the land of pop again. (If you don't know what that means, you've lived in Texas too long).
10:37 am local time
Mohave Desert
Looks like Katherine hurt more than her lip when she fell. Just called our dentist. Waiting to see if we need to take her somewhere when we hit Bakersfield. Prayers appreciated.
________
About two hours on the road, Katherine became crying, really crying, completely inconsolable. We pulled over. Guys, we were literally in the middle of dessert. There was nothing around for miles. Just dirt, a couple of cactus and our minivan. After I checked on her, I realized that she had hit her mouth much harder than we've first realized. (Warning: This picture is a little graphic. If you have kids, you've probably seen worse).
We took a picture and phoned our dentist's office back home who had me text a picture. (By the way, I love our pediatric dentist). They assured me it would look worse before it looked better and I was given instructions on how to care for it including, wiping with a warm washcloth, cut up her food into small pieces, and make a dentist appointment when we get home.
12:33 pm local time
Bakersfield, California
Eating lunch at Denny's and just realized I forgot the wedding present. Considered sending Carl back for it but it IS our anniversary . . . .
4:53 pm Local time
Cambria, California
Well, it wouldn't be a vacation unless someone puked.
________
And it was Katherine. Who, you'll remember, had fallen and hit her head hard on a night stand that morning and had already thrown up once before.
5:09 pm Local Time
Highway 1
Look what we found!
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| The kids seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time. |
7:59 pm Local Time
Monterey, California
Made it to Chili's after a terrifying, beautiful, exhilarating drive up Highway 1. I had to close my eyes a lot which was okay because I wasn't driving.
__________
Ah, yes, Chili's. Have you ever wondered what would happen if your child projectile-vomited during dinner hour rush at a restaurant? Never fear, I can answer that.
Katherine seemed to be feeling better. It had been a long day on the road and we were all tired and hungry. We'd just settled in to eat some chips and salsa when Katherine blew. And she blew everywhere. They had to move us and the table to get everything up. We weren't sitting in a quiet little corner of the restaurant. Oh no, we were in the middle of it all.
We gave our waiter a very good tip.
But I wasn't as concerned about cleaning up the puke as much as the fact that this was the third time in less than twelve hours that Katherine, who'd had a nasty run-in with an end table, had thrown up. I called our pediatricians' office on-call doctor after I changed her clothes and then mine (because, of course, I got it too). The pediatrician told us we really needed to take her to an emergency room to be checked out.
We drove to Salinas, California (a bit outside of Monterey) and checked into the Wagon Wheel Hotel (can you guess what their logo was?) just after 10pm. It was decided that Carl would stay with the boys and sleep while I took Katherine to a local emergency room. My GPS did not fail me. It took me directly to the nearest local hospital. It was also the county hospital.
"Are you lost?" The woman at the desk asked me as soon as she saw me.
"I don't think so?" But maybe? "We're here passing through on vacation and she fell and needs to see a doctor."
"Okay then," she replied and talked me through the admittance process before sending us to the waiting room, which was small and cramped and guarded by two police officers.
There were two seats left . . . right next to a man in an orange jumpsuit wearing handcuffs on both his hands and feet. Next to him sat his own personal prison guard. We sat and the prisoner smiled at Katherine, showing a smile missing quite a few teeth except the few hanging on by sheer will.
"She's cute," he said.
"Ah . . . ." I mean, really, what am I supposed to say?
"Shut up," the guard growled. "No talking." The prisoner slumped down and didn't say another word.
Katherine eventually fell asleep in my arms while we waited and waited and waited and . . . . well, you get the point. My phone didn't work in the hospital so I spent most of my time people watching. An older man who looked homeless sat across from us, his belly distended and uncomfortable looking. A family sat behind him, the little girl with dark hair and even darker eyes playing peek-a-boo with me. A very drunk young man whose friend had just been hit by a car sat to the left of me. He cried and spoke loudly and I learned more about his life than I ever needed to know.
 |
| Hanging out in her hospital bed, waiting for the doctor. |
Katherine slept on and then, finally, we were called back. The triage nurse fawned over a now-awake Katherine and then moved us to a second waiting room. Here, Katherine got her second wind and danced around to "Uptown Funk" for 45 minutes before we were given a bed. The bed was in the hallway. For privacy. there was a curtain. The curtain did not block out the sound of the young man getting arrested in the bed across from us.
The nurses and hospital staff were all very nice and happily ooh'ed and ahh'ed over Katherine. I got the feeling they didn't see many almost two year olds with infectious smiles. After all that, the doctor spent ten minutes with us, declared a very mild concussion, told me what to look for, and sent us packing.
So, a very tired Mommy and a now rather awake Katherine headed back to our hotel room around 1:30 in the morning.
1:44 am Local Time
Salinas, California
Apparently it's never really a family vacation unless someone ends up in the emergency room.
She's fine but a loooong night.
_____
That, my friends, is day four of our trip. But, my friends, I'll warn you now, the puke is just getting started. Part three will be coming soon . . . .
_______
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