We went to Salt Lake City, Yellowstone National Park, and Grand Teton National Park. On June 5th, Randy's B-Day, the kids and I loaded up Randy's mom's car, she dropped it off the week earlier on her move out to Utah, and we headed out on the two day journey to Utah. Randy was flying later in the week as he had to work. The kids were rock stars they endured 2 9+ hour days in a TINY little car but we made it! :-) As we arrived we had been warned about my Brother-In-Laws psycho dog by my M-I-L, but she tends to exaggerate so I wanted to see with my own eyes. Well this dog is the most psychotic dog I have ever seen in my life. I could never live with a dog that crazy. He bit the kids, knocked them down, he eats everything in sight, shoes, toys, etc. I really couldn't believe how insane this dog was. We managed to survive the next 48 hours until we left on Saturday to go get our RV. We sent the kids ahead with Randy's sister and we went down to pick up our RV from the guy we were renting from and would meet them at the first stop. We get the RV and start heading north.
Right as we are about to cross the Idaho border there was about 10 miles of construction with the large orange barrels. We're driving and these barrels were all over our lane of traffic. I see one coming up that is most definitely in our lane and yell, "Randy your going to HIT......BOOOOOM! Yep we hit it with the side of the RV. In his defense, it was 4 feet into our lane, and a very small shoulder, and a wide RV. We pull over as soon as we can. Damage done was the clips that hold the front of the awning on were broken and the steps that you use to get in the side door of the RV were demolished. I was about ready to cry. We had no tools, no rope, nothing as we were on our own. So Randy used the straps from our suitcases to hold the stair up and the shoulder strap from our camera bag to keep the awning secure.
We arrive at our first stop, and with the help of Randy's sister and her husband we get the awning secure, and the step removed. Now it is Saturday night, and all RV stores are closed on Sunday. We knew we were tough out of luck. We started scouring the Internet for replacement parts. The prices were not pretty. We decided to just sleep on it and try again in the morning.
Sunday we finished heading north to Yellowstone. Now we are simple campers, we like being in the parks, not Randy's brother and sister, they like full hook-ups. So we stayed outside the park at a
Wednesday we headed down to the Tetons, again staying out of the park at another RV Park, got out step and was able to replace it and found some replacement parts for the awning. There had been some family drama also, but that is to be expected from putting 4 different families together for that long period of a time. :-) We finished out our time and started heading down back to Salt Lake City. We stopped at Bear Lake where the mosquito's were so thick that they flew in your mouth, it was HORRIBLE!!!!! Needless to say Dasha is one big lumpy mosquito bite by now. Randy and I got up early the last morning and headed back to his brothers house to get the RV ready to give back to the owner. As we were bringing in the slides the slide broke. My heart really sank, that is NOT GOOD!!!
By this time I am swearing off camping ever again, especially in someone else's stuff. We get back to Randy's brothers house and have to deal with the crazy psycho dog again, praise the Lord he stayed with a dog sitter while we were camping. Randy fixes the awning and decided to see if he can fix the slide and luckily all that happened is a bolt broke. It was a fairly easy fix. He finally returns it and I think finally, it is over. Randy flies home that night and the kids and I fly home on Monday night.
Well I woke up in the middle of the night Sunday night sicker than a dog, I will spare you the details but I thought momentarily that death might be better than what I was experiencing. I somehow was making it through the day on Monday just praying for our flight so we could get home, and about an hour and a half before we leave for our flight, Camden says, Mom, my tummy hurts. Then it all comes out.....
He proceeds to vomit every 10 minutes, for the next hour. I called the airline to see if we can change our flights, sure, for $300 per person, nope, not an option, off to the airport we go. I am in the back holding Camden, a bowl and catching puke, while trying to not puke myself. We get to the airport, I ask for a wheelchair, curb side service, everything I can get. As we are going through security, Camden has his head in a Wal-Mart bag puking. I felt so bad for him....I was able to get a wheelchair for him at all the airports as we had to change planes in Denver. We get on the first plane, and he pukes before we take off, I laid him on my lap and tried to get him to go to sleep. He slept for 15 minutes and woke up puking. We got to be first name basis with the stewardess after that....
We got off in Denver, and a nice lady helped me as I had Camden in a wheel chair, Dasha, a car seat and three backpacks. She delivered us to our next plane and said, "Good Luck." We had one more hour and ten minute flight. As we were pre-boarding the lady at the ticket booth, looked at Camden with his barf bag, and said that he wasn't fit to fly. I about lost it. I told her we were going on the flight whether she liked it or not. She took one look at my wild crazy hair and eyes and ghostly appearance, as I was very sick also and said ok, just hide the barf bag.
We got on the last flight Camden got sick one more time right as we were taking off and then fell asleep for the rest of the flight thank goodness. We even got in early which was nice, but Randy wasn't there yet, and no one was helping me, so I put both kids in the wheelchair, and hung all the backpacks on the back and somehow steered the wheelchair and carried the car seat at the same time. Got to baggage claim, got our bags right as Randy was pulling in.
That was Monday, it is now Friday, I am better, Camden is still not. It appears that there is a Noro virus outbreak going on in Yellowstone and Tetons right now, so pretty sure that is what we got. He is slowly getting better, but I can't wait until my little man is back to normal. Unfortunately my last trip to Yellowstone and Tetons also was a disaster, so maybe I just need to avoid those parks from now on! Sorry for the long novel, just had to get it out!
