Day 4— Getting to Moab

A week or so before we left on our trip my sister Laila called to tell me that she and her kids were spending a few days in Price & Moab. I was so envious—I've wanted to go to Southern Utah for a few years but haven't figured out a way to do it with Josh's school schedule and my aversion to 100+ degree days.

As I was talking to Laila that day I realized that since we were going to be driving to Utah via I-70 this year, we would be driving right past Moab. It was a done deal in that moment. I decided that instead of driving all the way to our first Utah destination, we would stop in the afternoon and enjoy Arches that evening and the next morning before continuing on. Being able to get a free hotel with my credit card points sealed the deal.

I did a little more research on the trip to Arches and learned something interesting. Arches & Moab are at one point of a triangle, the sides of which are formed by Highway 191, Interstate 70, and Highway 128. Most people take 191 when they're going to Arches & Moab because it's a much nicer & straighter road. Since we would have to drive about 30 miles past 128 to get to 191, I decided to try to find out more about 128.

I learned that Highway 128 is a Utah Scenic Byway, and is considered one of the 4 most scenic drives in the Western United States. Well I am all about scenic drives. I decided that we would take 128 to Moab, and 191 when we left Moab.

As we got off of I-70 going towards 128 I had a twinge of worry. The sign telling that there were no services for the next however many miles didn't make me feel any more confident. Neither did passing a place called Cisco, which may once have been a town but is now just a collection of dilapidated shacks. It truly was a desolate area.

Within a couple of miles, however, the highway started running along the Colorado River and I stopped worrying and started enjoying the beautiful scenery. And it was lovely. Even the kids were appreciative--and you know that's saying a lot!

All of the mountains & rocks were a deep red color that contrasted beautifully with the green vegetation. Some of the rocks made incredible formations that looked like towers or people.

After we'd driven for quite a while one of the children (who shall remain nameless) announced a pressing need for a bathroom. I was a little panicked — how was I supposed to produce a bathroom in the middle of nowhere? Happily we soon passed a little campground on the side of the river, complete with what must be one of the world's most primitive potties.

While that child was thusly engaged, the rest of the kids decided that they would explore the wonderland of rocks that was on the other side of the road. Undeterred by the fact that most of them were wearing only crocs or sandals, they started climbing.

We probably spent an hour there. They had such a great time I had a hard time pulling them away.

It's hard to convey the size of this area, or the magnitude and number of the rocks. When Jason climbed as far as he could in the time allowed he was just a small speck. (A small, very happy speck!)

By the time we climbed back down the little kids had all found rocks that were treasures and "needed" to come home with us. They were so sad when I was firm that the rocks had to stay where they belonged. Jared contented himself with writing his name on one of the big rocks.

As we left and continued our drive to Moab big clouds rolled in over the mountains. It was beautiful and I hoped we'd see a storm, but no luck.

We arrived in Moab, checked into our hotel, (nice lobby, inadequate room airconditioning...) found some dinner, and had a quick swim in the pool before starting our Arches Adventure.

(to be continued)

A series of unfortunate events and the tender mercies that saved the day.

It has been a busy couple of weeks.  Fun days in Utah with cousins, a weekend with grandparents, reuniting with our NC friends, and 5 days in Moab.  Hopefully I’ll get to some of that later.  But right now I am going to write about the coming home part of our trip, part terrible and part miraculous. 

On Saturday morning last week we got up and hiked in very early to Delicate Arch.  After our hike half of our group was ready to be done for the day and half of our group wanted to go see a few more arches.  We gave Josh the keys to the van and sent with one group back to the condos and we went further into the park.  It was several hours before we were completely exhausted and headed back to our condo in Moab.

Ken needed to stop at the grocery store on our way back and Russ & I stayed in the car to wait for him.  As we were sitting there I noticed that a voicemail had popped up on my cell phone once we were out of the “no cell phone service” area of Arches, but I didn’t recognize the number.  I hit the button and sat and listened to the voicemail, never expecting to hear what I heard.  It went something like this:

Hello, this is _____, a nurse at the hospital here in Moab.  Your son Josh has had a biking accident and is in the emergency room now.  We need you to come to the hospital…

I’m sure she said something else but I honestly have no clue what, because at that point my brain shut down.  Josh has been bmx biking for about a year now, and it had never occurred to me at any point that he could be hurt—but listening to this message opened up a whole world of new possibilities, none of them good.  I called Ken who quickly came back out to the car and took us over to the ER.  This is what we saw.

(just so you know—I didn’t take a picture of Josh until I knew that he was going to be ok.)

This is all we know about what happened.  After Josh got back to the condo he was bored, so he decided to go ride his bmx bike at the course there in Moab.  He’d ridden there every day that we’d been in Moab and had been having a great time.  He left the condo about 9:30.

  (They went by on their way out of town to take some pictures of the bmx course.)

At some point he had an accident, and around 10:30 some local kids found him there off of his bike.  We’re not sure if he was unconscious when they found him, but they called 911 and by the time the police came he was able to tell them his name and identify his car.  The EMS people came and transported him (on a backboard because he said his neck was really hurting) to the hospital.  (Which ironically was across the street.)  At the hospital they did a CT scan of his head, his face, and his neck.  His head and neck were fine, but he had 3 fractures of the bone around his eye on his left side.  (Also some abrasions on his neck on that side.)  Fortunately the fractures didn’t displace at all so they should heal without a problem.  He also has a severe concussion.  The doctors warned us that he would be confused and forget everything and ask the same questions over and over again, and he did.

Although I felt terrible that it had taken us so long to get the cell phone message, the nurse assured us that it was actually better for us to have arrived after they knew what was going on rather than to have had to wait to find out how he was.  This way they could tell us that his neck was ok, that there was no bleeding in his brain, and that he was going to be ok.  The doctor also emphasized that this really was the best case scenario, and that most of the bike accident victims that they saw weren’t able to walk out of the ER like Josh did later that day.  We are enormously grateful for this blessing, even more so after I got a text from the EMS guy the next day saying that that day they had picked up one biker with a broken jaw and another with a broken neck.

Josh walked out of the ER wearing two hospital gowns because they cut his clothes off of him when they brought him into the ER.  We dropped the gowns off the next morning on our way out of town and asked them for some of the disposable bags used for vomiting, since they had warned us that he had thrown up a number of times after getting to the ER and was likely to become nauseated again.  They handed me a big stack which I was sure was overkill but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have them. 

The doctor said that Josh would need to see a doctor as soon as we got back to Oregon.  Because of the new information on long-term problems with concussions they are now monitored carefully, and the patient is gradually released to do different activities.  As the doctor was explaining this and asking when we would be home again I told him we were driving the next day (Sunday) up to the Salt Lake area and then driving the day after that (Monday) back to Oregon because Josh’s older brother was getting home from his mission on Wednesday.  “I guess Josh isn’t going to be able to help me drive, is he?” I asked the doctor.  He told me it was going to be a while before Josh could drive again.

I wasn’t too worried about the driving part because a couple of months ago Alisyn and I had decided that she along with Elise and Connor would drive home to Oregon with us so that they could see Jason when he got home from his mission and before Elise left on her mission.  I figured that I could drive most of the way home and Alisyn could drive for a while so I could get a nap.

 

We drove back up to Bountiful on Sunday, dropped Russ off at the airport, returned Abigail and Benjamin to their parents, had dinner with Laila’s family, and went to sleep up at Russ’s parent’s house.  Monday morning we got up at early (not Delicate Arch early, but still very early for me) and we were at the airport to pick up Alisyn, Elise, and Connor by 7:15AM.  We loaded their bags and were on our way Oregon bound within just a few minutes. 

Before we had been driving for an hour my stomach started hurting.  I was really annoyed because I’d had a couple of really great stomach days and had been optimistic that the regimen of prilosec that I’d been on was finally working.  I took some tums and ate some saltines but it didn’t help—the pain kept increasing.  Finally I pulled off at a gas station and told Alisyn that I needed her to drive because my stomach was hurting so much.  She hadn’t been driving too long before I realized that not only was my stomach hurting, but I was also feeling terribly nauseated.  I fished around in all of the stuff around my seat in the van and found the unused bags from the hospital, pulled one off the stack, and found that yes indeed, they worked very well for vomiting. 

I don’t remember much of that drive. Josh slept in the back, I felt sick in the front, and Alisyn and Elise took turns driving and got us to Boise by early afternoon.  By that point I was sure that I couldn’t go any farther so I texted my friend Megan and told her what was going on and asked if we could come to her house while we figured out what to do next.  I laid down at her house for about an hour while Megan and Alisyn found some hotel rooms.  At that point I realized that I was feeling worse instead of better, and I asked Alisyn to take me to urgent care. 

Because this experience felt so similar to my episode of pain/vomiting that landed me in the hospital in the fall I had figured that it would be resolved quickly.  Unfortunately it didn’t work that way.  In the urgent care they couldn’t give as strong of pain medicine as they could in the ER last fall, and because it turned out that I actually had a virus (norovirus) they couldn’t make my body stop throwing up, just slow it down some.  They did give me 2 bags of IV fluids because I was so dehydrated, and when that was done they sent me on my way with Alisyn. 

Alisyn said that she thought about taking a picture of me with the purse cam, but I looked so awful that she didn’t.  All I know is that I was miserable and I had crazy chills the whole time I was there.  I was huddled on the exam room table with Megan’s blanket (which I will disinfect before I send back!!) and two blankets from the clinic and I was still cold a lot of the time. 

While I was getting treated at the clinic Alisyn had gone back to Megan’s for dinner (can’t you just tell what a wonderful person Megan is?!?) and then taken the kids to the hotel so that they could swim.  Then she came back and picked me up and took me to the hotel.  When I got to the hotel they said that Josh has only been in the pool for a little while before deciding he was too tired to swim and that he had gone to bed.  I climbed into the other bed and settled down for a night of restless sleep interrupted regularly by vomiting. 

Around 2 or 3 in the morning I could tell that the shot of anti-nausea medicine had worn off because it wasn’t making me sleep anymore.  I was even more miserable then—my body felt all tense and exhausted at the same time, it hurt every time I breathed, and I still needed to throw up every half hour or so.  I finally decided that I was going to try taking a bath to see if it would help.  I threw up one more time, then climbed into the bathtub.  It was a small-ish bathtub, but just the right size so that I could stretch out in it and lean my head on the side of the tub.  I did that, and much to my surprise I fell asleep.  I woke up a little while later, put in a little more warm water, leaned my head the other way, and fell asleep again.  By the time I woke up the next time the water was not very warm and I felt much better.  I dressed and climbed back in the bed and slept until at least 9 the next morning, with no more nausea.

We weren’t in too much of a hurry to leave the hotel because we didn’t want to hit Portland during rush hour, but we finally got all loaded up and ready to go.  I felt so incredibly better than the day before, which is always such an amazing feeling.  It was only when we loaded the car that I realized that now Elise wasn’t feeling well, which meant that Elise wasn’t going to be doing any driving.  Alisyn drove for a while, then I drove for a while, then she drove while I tried to nap, and I drove the last two hours so that she didn’t have to deal with Portland traffic and crazy roads.    We got home around 6:30 and I’m not sure I have ever been so relieved to have made it home, only about 18 hours before Jason was supposed to return.

 

I’m not sure at what point I realized the miracle of the whole situation.  Last week when I’d looked forward to driving home I’d assumed that we would have 4 drivers.  Then when Josh was out of commission because of his concussion I thought it would be ok because we had 3 drivers and I’d driven the whole way by myself before.  I never ever expected that I would be completely unable to drive that first day and that Alisyn and Elise would have to do all of the driving themselves.   I remember trying to figure out as we drove north from Ogden where I could go to be sick because I was feeling so terrible.  I think if Alisyn and Elise had not been with us I would have had to go to my dad’s house because I just wasn’t able to go any farther on my own.  Which would have meant that Jason would have gotten to the airport and only Russ would have been there to see him—and that would have been sad.  I’m not sure when I would have felt strong enough to make the drive home, even taking two days to do it.  I’ve felt absolutely hammered today, just from doing a couple of hours of driving yesterday.  And what are the odds that I would have a car full of throw up bags?  (Sorry—I have no clue what they’re actually called.) 

Every now and then when I see something like this in my life, when I absolutely know that the Lord has set something in motion long before my need arises, and I am beyond amazed at His care and concern for me. 

Today when I hugged Jason in the airport and he said “Mom, it’s so good to see you,” all I could think was how close he came to not seeing me today.  And how grateful I was that we were all there…

Moab #1: Accommodations

Last year before we even drove back to NC for our beach trip we realized that we were not going to be able to go to the beach this year because Jason would be coming home from his mission right at the same time.  It turned out that it would have been difficult for Ken & Alisyn’s family as well, since they were going to be flying out to Utah to go on an Alaskan cruise with his family to celebrate his parent’s 50th anniversary.  It didn’t take us too long to agree that we should have a vacation in Utah together, and pretty soon we had settled on Moab/Arches.  (In August—I know a crazy choice.  But don’t worry—it all works out well in the end.  Well aside from the concussion part…but I’m getting ahead of myself.)

We all met in Orem at Ken’s parents Tuesday around lunchtime.  It was so wonderful to see Ken and Alisyn again in person, but I was surprised to realize that the work we’ve done to maintain contact through phone, email, and skype has been surprisingly effective—it didn’t feel like it had been a year since we’d seen them in person.  We got some lunch and then climbed in our cars for the long drive to Moab. 

Last time we were in Moab we stayed in some nice condos right in town, but they had a terrible indoor pool.  This time we stayed in condos just outside of town with a nice (super-chlorinated) pool and a beautiful view. 

The condos were fabulous.  They were comfortable, decorated beautifully, and had everything we even though about needing.  Two thumbs up for these Moab accommodations—we’d go back in a heartbeat.

Moab Part 1: Arriving

 

You may have already figured out from my picture last week that the kids and I were in Moab.  We were able to entice about half of my family to meet us there, and at the last minute my dad and Ramona were able to come too.  We spent 2 nights (not nearly enough time, we all decided) and had a wonderful time.  And my sister already has pictures up on her blog so I’m being shamed into working on mine!

We arrived in Moab Wednesday evening, via one of the most beautiful roads I’ve ever had the pleasure of driving on.  You see, you can drive on the fast direct road, or you can drive on the scenic route road that goes along the Colorado River.  I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I would pick the scenic road.  The river was beautiful and the canyon walls were amazing.

  

We were so excited to arrive in Moab at our condos and see all of the cousins.  The only fly in the ointment was that the condos were around a long corner from each other so it wasn’t convenient to go back and forth.  After some consultation among the parents we decided that the only thing to be done was take this

It was a brilliant move accomplished by the removal of 4 boards and 12 screws, and when we were ready to leave Jason & Robby re-attached everything and no one will ever be the wiser.  (Let’s just hope the owners aren’t reading my blog!)

My dad & Ramona took everyone out to Pizza Hut for dinner; I’m not sure that Pizza Hut knew what hit them!  (There were 30 of us.)

  

 

 

Then we went back to the condos and I went to bed early in preparation for our big Moab adventure—a sunrise hike to Delicate Arch!

~to be continued~

Moab #2: A River Runs Through It

Initially the idea was that if we went to Moab on our vacation we could go on a multi-day river trip.  In the end we decided that a multi-day trip was too rich for our blood, but we did do some research to find a company that was highly recommended for a one day river trip.

We were disposed to like our river guides from the very beginning, when they were telling everyone where to go.  They directed the people standing near us to get on a bus and then they said “but not the Ray Party.  The Ray Party gets their own bus.”  Well how could we not like that?!?  The Ray Party we were, and we had a great time on our own bus.

The first time the kids and I went to Moab we drive in on a scenic highway that was alongside the Colorado River.  It was truly one of the most spectacular drives I’ve even taken, so I was thrilled to realize that this was where we’d be floating that day.  But forgive me—I am getting ahead of myself.  Before we got into the rafts, everyone got the chance to use the Google Earth toilet. 

With no roof on it, we were all able to wave at the satellites passing overhead.  Such fun.  We were also told that should we have any bodily needs while on the river, the “pollution solution was dilution.” 

The next thing that made us love our rafting guides was the raft configuration.  All of the adults must have been doing the math in the bus, because when we got out at the put in site we were all ready to ask the same question,

Can the adults go on a raft together without any kids??

To our great surprise and delight they said yes.  YES!!  And without further ado they loaded the teenaged boys into one raft, the girls plus the boyfriend into the next raft, and we adults loaded into the third raft.  And proceeded to have the Best. Day. Ever.  Seriously!

I have no idea what went on on the other rafts.  Every now and then there was a bit of craziness and someone jumped off a raft

or tried “riding the bull.”

Every now and then there seemed to be more people in the water than in the rafts.

We probably would have spent more time in the water, but the day was unexpectedly cloudy and cooler than normal.  The upside of that was that no one got sunburned, but the downside was that it was kind of chilly when you got wet and none of my pictures had a beautiful blue sky in them.  (Of course all of my pictures had to be taken with the purse cam anyway because I didn’t trust a dry bag to keep my big camera safe.)

Halfway through the day we stopped for lunch, where after we were admonished not to “hover” over the guides as they were preparing lunch we were treated to a feast of delicious sandwiches, wraps, and cookies.  We considered it especially significant that this was the first time they had ever brought avocado, since we consider avocado an important part of almost every meal we have together. 

We were also introduced to a new concept at lunch: microtrash.  Because so many river trips go through this area and pull up and eat on the beaches, it is important not only to pick up the big pieces of food that are dropped but also the tiny pieces.  As the guide pointed out, if we leave microtrash laying around that will bring ants, and ants will bring bigger bugs that want to eat the ants, then small animals will come to eat the bigger bugs, and before you know it there will be rednecks with guns everywhere!

After lunch we got back in the rafts for the rest of our trip. 

The kids did more playing and swimming and we adults just talked and talked and talked.  And looked at the beautiful scenery, and watched for blue herons (and lamented the lack of a long zoom with which to photograph them) and then talked some more.

We had a few minutes of excitement every now and then when we’d go through a little rapids, but they were all very small.  There was a professional photographer set up on a beach near one of the rapids and we bought some fun shots from him.

And I also remembered another funny thing from the river trip.  The other people who were taking the river trip the same day as us were all from Belgium.  The river guides explained that August was “Euro-month” in Moab.  Sure enough, everywhere we went we were surrounded by Europeans!

By the middle of the afternoon we were all waterlogged and tired, thoroughly happy with our day and ready to go back to the condo and take a nap.

 

One of the kids (who shall remain nameless) had been a little unnerved when he/she saw the total cost of our river rafting expedition.  After it was all over I would do it again in a heartbeat—that was one of the best days I’ve had ever.  Totally worth it!

Moab #7—Moab Miscellany

First of all, Kate.  Who wasn’t miscellany at all, and was totally the star of the show.  We loved having her there, and Cindy Lynn & Mahon were amazing in their ability to get out and hike with her.

 

Josh celebrated his 18th birthday, refusing again to have a cake.  We subbed with cookie dough, always a favorite.

As always, we played signs.  Though my opinion would be that this was too many people for signs.

These boys had a lot of fun together.  Dinosaurs, dorks…whatever!

Cindy Lynn took pictures of Elise for her mission picture.

Here is the note we would have found on our van if we had known that we needed to look for the van.

I took 2 pictures of Josh after I knew that he was ok.  Before that it was too scary. 

Josh spent the evening & night in our super comfy master bed so that we could keep a good eye on him.  We had to wake him up every few hours to make sure that nothing had changed.

I had to have a little moment of fun with Alisyn and show that I could walk around in a towel even if we weren’t at the beach.

One of the really fun things we did that there are no pictures of is watch for shooting stars.  We were pretty close to the apex of the perseid meteor shower and the sky was so dark there.  One of the strange things that happened there was that I somehow lost my regular glasses (I was wearing my prescription sunglasses everywhere we went) and so I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to see the shooting stars, but it turned out that while the night sky was a little blurry, I could see the meteors just fine.  And they were lovely.  We had a great time sitting out on the little patio staring up at the sky.

There was a lot of ice cream that still needed to be eaten when it was time to check out.

On the way out of town Ken took Josh by the BMX bike place to take a picture of where his accident was.

We stopped for lunch in Price, along with half the civilized world.  We ended up eating outside on the sidewalk.  And I forgot to get Josh a sandwich.  Fortunately Ken loved him more than I did and took him across the street to Arbys.  (The line at subway was enormous.)

Driving through Spanish Fork Canyon on the way home we saw the beginnings of what turned into a big forest fire.  We were glad when we saw police cars gathering so we knew that it had been seen by more people than us.

The kids really passed out on the way home.

Here are the two Christmas Ornaments we got this year.  Cindy Lynn picked them out because I was back at the condo taking care of concussed Josh.  (The second one is meant to be funny.  Or at least ironic.)

Looking at these pictures again has been such fun.  So much has happened since our Moab vacation (concussion, vomiting, Jason, vomiting, camping, hiking, concussion) that I haven’t thought a lot about it.  But looking at the pictures and writing about the things we did and the fun we had made me happy all over again.  We are so fortunate to have such wonderful friends and family and such great opportunities!