Hawaiian Vacation Day One

Day one of our trip actually began on Tuesday the 12th, even though we weren't leaving for Hawaii until the 14th. When we booked our airfare it was much cheaper to drive the twelve hours to San Diego and fly from there then it was to fly from Salt Lake. Troy worked a half day and I picked him up at the church at 1:00 pm. We were planning to drive all the way to my grandparents house in San Diego which, with the hour time change, would have put us in around midnight.

Not two minutes after we left the house Garrett told me that he has was having a problem in his *ahem* boy area. I thought it was nothing and he explained that it had been hurting all day. This was, of course, the first time he made mention of it. Neat. Not in the morning when I could have taken him to the doctor. No. Two minutes after we left to go on vacation.

I honestly thought it was nothing and that he'd forget about it so I told him to tell Troy when we picked him up. A few minutes after Troy climbed in the car, Garrett told him that it was bothering him. He started to kind of whimper. We asked him if we needed to go to the doctor and he said yes.

This instantly threw me into a ridiculously irritable mood. Not because I was mad at my child for hurting but because when I have a schedule I want to stick to it. We were on the road. On the road means we don't detour for anything. "Do you want to go to the doctor or do you want to go on vacation?" I asked my child. He looked at me with sad eyes and said, "I want to go to the doctor."

Crap.

I pulled off the freeway and went to his pediatrician. They couldn't see him until 2:40. We were supposed to be on the road at 1:00. We piled everyone back to the car and drove to an InstaCare. Thankfully, they were able to see Garrett right away. Turns out the poor child had a case of urethraitis. Also turns out he's going to murder me in my sleep some night when he finds out I blogged about it. The doctor was very nice and asked where we were headed.

"Well, we're headed to San Diego," I said.

"Oh, wow. How fun. Are you planning on going to the beach?" the doctor asked.

"Maybe," Garrett said, "But we're mostly going to Barstow with my Grandpa and Grandma!"

"Well, be careful if you're going to go to the beach at all because the antibiotic can make you burn."

I pulled the doctor aside and told him where we were really going. "Is it okay if he's in the sun? Like all day. All the time?" I asked. The doctor told me it was fine but to make sure we lathered him with sunscreen.

Then we went to fill the prescription. We walked around waiting for it and then, when Troy went up to get it, found out that they'd given us the liquid because they were out of chewable tablets. The doctor had specifically asked for the tablets because he knew we couldn't adequately refrigerate a liquid on a road trip. We had to go to a different pharmacy--which happened to be right by our house--to fill it in pill form. So we'd made a giant loop around northern Utah but never actually gone anywhere.

It took two hours to accomplish the appointment and the double pharmacy visit and I was beginning to think that Salt Lake was a vortex and we were unable to escape the strength of its gravitational pull. But, eventually, at 3:15 pm MST, we were able to get out of town.

We discussed stopping and getting a hotel in Barstow. This was, somehow, uproariously funny to Troy and me.

Between the two of us, we were able to power through the drive and made it to my grandparents house at 1:45 am PST. It was exhausting but we did it. With one day left, our oldest boy still believed that we were taking him to Barstow. The rest of the family was asleep when I drove through the real Barstow so I had a chuckle all by myself.

This looks exactly like Maui. Yeah?