The Vacation Diaries, Part 1

And now, because no one asked for it…a thrilling recap of our summer family vacation to Wyoming to visit family and see a bit of the Wild West. Yee-hah!

Two Days Before….

Dan-El starts having some out-of-character meltdowns and my Mom-dar goes off. (It’s like Gay-dar, only not as well dressed.)

I take him to the pediatrician and sure enough, he has a minor ear infection in his right ear. Ugh. My nervousness about flying with two children for the first time goes up about 11 notches. Still, on the bright side, the nurse practioner whole heartedly endorses the idea of drugging the little darling up with Benadryl before the flight to keep him calm. Yeah pharmaceuticals!



Day One: “Let’s Take This Show on the Road”

Somehow, we manage to get everyone bathed, clothed and out the door with all our luggage in tow to get into the taxi to go to the airport at 8 a.m. Jak-El is very impressed with his first taxi ride.

The flights from Boston to Denver, and then Denver to Jackson Hole overall are pretty uneventful. The husband manages to amuse Dan-El for most of the trip, and Jak-El is mesmerized by the new portable DVD player we acquired for the trip.

Upon arriving in Jackson Hole, we pick up our luggage and the rental car, and set out for the hotel, which is thankfully only about 10 minutes away. The scenery is breathtaking on the short drive.

We check into the Homewood Suites and decide that there is no way in hell we can cope with wrangling the kids in a restaurant. The nice woman at the front desk provides us with some takeout menus and we order from the local “Bennigan’s” style place. (motto: We do everything—but none of it very well!)

Jak-El takes one bite of his pizza and makes a squeamish face. “Mom, this pizza tastes sour,” he says. He hands me the pizza and then proceeds to vomit all over himself and the carpet. We clean everything up and five minutes later he declares himself all better and ready for an M&M ice cream sandwich. Um…no.



We spend the rest of the night trying to get adjusted to mountain time, which is weird. It stays light out until around 10 p.m., and worse, there’s no clear pattern to how the time difference is reflected in the television schedules. In central time, everything is one hour behind eastern time. Fine. On the west coast, all the TV shows are on at the “same” time as at home, because they have a different satellite feed. But in the mountain time zone? Some channels are an hour behind. Some are an hour ahead. Some are two hours off. Arrrragh! This will annoy us for the whole trip.

We draw the shades and everyone is asleep by 9:15 p.m. It is also the only night of the entire I don’t have to share a bed with at least one of the children. And the view from our room isn't bad, either.



Next: Antler art and fudge—what more do you need?