On the Road to Moab

Here is a picture taken from the road to Moab. Picture yourself at 9,000 feet coming down a steep 6-7% grade heading into this... Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Now add in enough snow to make the road treacherous with slush, cars off the side of the road and big trucks whizzing past. Seems like a pretty bad drive, right? Nah, as any parent knows it can get worse, much worse... Sure looks happy in this picture,eh? Just imagine Our Youngest sitting next to 77 year old Pappa... Puking! With Grandma from the back seat and Mom from the front desperately trying to help contain the mess. What a riot... I looked at my beautiful Wife and said I'm not stopping, she said I know. Won't soon forget this trip... This is the picture I took as soon as we could pull off so I could relieve the pressure on my white knuckles while Mom and Grandma cleaned up poor Dasher. Fresh Fallen snow. Beautiful! ************************************************************************ posted by Cal: While hubby did a splendid job of conveying the stressful first half of our trip to Moab, he failed to tell the whole story..... Nah, Just blocking from memory... ; ) Hubby took the first possible, safe exit he could. Unfortunately, there happened to be NO SERVICES at said stop- just a parking lot. Making the best of it that we could, we parked the van so AW was on the lee side and started to undress him and clean him up. Keep in mind that we were still at 9,000 feet, just beyond a snow storm on a windy afternoon- AW was miserable, he had just gotten sick and now he had to sit in his car seat naked, covered with goose bumps. I felt so bad doing that to him, but had no choice at that point. We finished getting him dressed, gave him some anti-nausea medicine and set off again. This time, I was next to AW. And I tend to get car sick, too. Especially in the back seat. And with the smell of vomit in the car, I was a nice shade of green to begin with. AW and I were twins. How sweet. Then it happened again. AW's belly refused the anti-nausea med I gave him. That worked well now, didn't it? Now, you have to know that basin duty is near impossible with him. All you have to do is put a hand on that bucket and he starts yelling "No bucket! No bucket!" while thrashing and pushing the bucket away. So here's the picture: AW is puking, I'm trying, in vain, to hold the basin under his chin with one hand and grabbing his hands with the other. All while looking away and gagging. And Grandma is on the edge of her seat in the way back, her arms wrapped around AW's seat comforting and helping with the basin. It was quite a scene. And of course, every time AW made the slightest off sounds, Grandma and I would both flinch and reach for the bucket, adrenaline pumping fast, ready for the next episode. Which came from an unexpected source: HL. Great. Now both kids are car sick and all four adults are stressed and, well, not in the best of spirits. Got the kids cleaned up and found a store at which we could procure some dramamine. Yes, they did have dramamine, all sorts of choices in fact. Except for chewable- the one option we needed. We bought a box anyway and decided to at least try. No go. The pills were absolutely disgusting and could not be masked or hidden- the boys were on to us. We finally found some chewable dramamine at a gas station and that's where the trip turned uneventful, except for the stress of anticipation, that is. It took us nearly eleven hours(for a seven hour trip), countless grocery bags, and a bit of cussing, but we made it. Finally. And I learned that dramamine is my new best friend.