Home at Last

As I sit hunched and naked on the toilet at a La Quinta on IH 25 in Albuquerque, it would be really easy to chalk this up as the worst vacation ever, but then, that would be selling the various fabulous aspects of this trip short. Like sitting in the drive-in of the Sonic in Taos feeding wild prairie dogs tortilla out the window. Or the drive we took yesterday that circled up the glorious mountains near Los Alamos... parking at the Valles Caldera National Preserve to watch herds of elk graze. Or the Walt Whitman reading I did at my friend's wedding that reduced me to tears. The Greek dolmas and taramasalata we ate last night at the Olympia Cafe on the great retro, neon college strip by the University of New Mexico ~ otherwise known as Route 66. Did I mention all the rad motor lodges that dot said route? The pueblos. The blue sky and white puffy clouds that hang over everything out here. The cottonwood puffs that fill the air, blowing in glorious swirls... Canyon Road in Santa Fe... The red cliffs. Jackrabbits. Love. Happiness. And did I mention elk? ELK FOR GOD'S SAKE!

Now later, as I sit hunched on the toilet back in San Antonio (yea, sometimes I blog on the toilet. Got a problem with that?)... I am hesitant to mention the bad parts as not to sully the journey, but it is hard to not bring some downerness to it when your welcome home mat is bathed in the vomit of your three-day-motion-sick toddler.

That's right. It all started three days ago on the famous High Road to Taos... or rather what we thought was the High Road to Taos. Somewhere around the small village of Truchas, NM, we took a terrible, regrettable wrong turn. What started out as a lovely dirt road that passed fields and horses and flowers... quickly turned into a hellacious, scary, cliffed mud trail deep into the wilderness.

As we drove deeper and deeper into the Carson National Forest (Hub, can this still be the High Road to Taos?), we thought we must be on the right road as there was a hippie Subaru in front of us and we thought for sure they wouldn't be driving to nowhere. Turns out said hippies live in the middle of nowhere. When we finally flagged them at the turn off to their mountain retreat... an hour in... they laughed at us, then couldn't believe we'd made the drive in something other than a four-wheel-drive... then told us that going back would be impossible, and that a better forest road was three miles ahead... and that we "might make it" if our huge rented Ford Explorer could make a precarious, hairpin turn on the highest mountain peak in New Mexico and then descend down and cross a river into civilization.

Scared but determined, we got one mile down the road before the LOW TIRE PRESSURE light went on. FUCK. As we stepped out of the car I could hear the air wheezing from the rubber like an old man's death rattle. That's right, we blew a tire. (That road was so rocky and pitted, I'm surprised we didn't blow them all.) As the hub changed the blasted thing, and my mom soothed the bub, I kept an eye out for murdering hillbillies and bears... yes bears... and watched the biggest termites I have ever seen build a mound taller than me. Dread is not a strong enough word to describe what I was feeling as I sat there sensing that the termites were shifting their attention from the mound to my leg. At one point, there were so many, merely brushing them off was not an option. (Come on hub, hurry it up!) All at once I pictured us on the evening news. NIAVE TOURIST FAMILY GETS LOST IN WOODS AND IS DEVOURED BY TERMITE COLONY BEFORE BEING USED BY BEARS AS TOILET TISSUE. If the hub broke the jack he only sort of knew how to use, I knew we were fucked. If we blew another tire, I knew we were fucked. If we ran out of gas, I knew we were fucked. If we took a wrong turn, I knew we were fucked. If we dipped off the road at all, I knew we were fucked. Basically, we were fucked.

Once on the road again, my mom started freaking out as she was looking eye to eye with the tips of 100 foot tall pine trees and was sure the hub was gonna make a wrong move and propel the SUV right over the side of the mountain. It was just about the time that we reached the bottom and crossed the river (2 hours in) and finally felt like we could breathe a sigh of relief that the bub began to projectile puke all over me, my mom and the car. (Really, we are lucky the bub didn't get whiplash with all the jostling around he endured.) Some Father's Day. Basically, the bub didn't stop puking for three days. Poor little guy.

When he first got sick, I was utterly terrified. He's never been sick like that before, much less sick in the middle of nowhere a million miles from a hospital or cell phone service. To see my child's face literally explode, it broke my heart and sent my brain into worryville. It was so traumatizing for the hub and I that each gag would mean pulling over the car, changing the bub's cloths, snuggling him endlessly and basically making a huge fuss. The bub became such a pro at it by the end, that when he puked in the car, we had a system... he would warn me, I would ready the cup, he would puke into it, I would wipe his mouth, and that would be it without even slowing the car by a mile.

Basically the last three days meant a lot of cleaning up... and a lot of hanging out in hotel rooms watching Pukehouse... I mean Playhouse Disney and a lot of googling of Web MD. The bub was such a trooper and a big boy during it all. I was so proud of him. He didn't cry or whine. He stayed tough and talked to us about how he was feeling the whole time.

To add insult to injury, the hub and I finally got the date out last night that my mom had been promising us the whole trip. We bought her a T-bone steak from Denny's and left the bub in her care.

We were alone for the first time in a week, and it felt great. The hub even opened the car door for me. We ordered two Fat Tires and as much Greek food as we could fit on the table.... and it was just about the time dinner was served that the hub started complaining he didn't feel good. Two hours later, we're back at the hotel, and he is fighting a violent bout of food poisoning from both ends and cursing the day he was born. Turns out the hub had an off corn dog at Sonic earlier that day... thank god we didn't feed any to the prairie dogs!

Both the hub and the bub did OK on the plane ride home, but as soon as the bub hit the front steps tonight at around midnight, he was at it again... waxing the walk with his innards.

Oh well... we tried. Let's just say, it's good to be home. The next time I see the stub of a plane ticket or the zipper on my suitcase, it will be too soon.