Roooooad Trip!

The Hula-gen's are taking a little road trip this weekend. We leave tomorrow morning for this place: Where we'll see these guys in concert:And I will likely be the oldest person in the room, unless of course there are other adults there with minors. Small cameras ARE allowed, so I may have pics for you next week. I picked out an outfit that I hope doesn't scream "trying too hard to be young" and "oh my God, my mom is wearing mom jeans". I'm sure I'll get a roll of the eyes tomorrow evening, no matter what. Hee-hee. I also picked up a pair of these:In case it's really loud. We'll do a little shopping and goofing around town before heading home Monday afternoon. I trotted over to weather.com today where I found a big heaping pile of doo-doo called the St. Louis forecast. By the time we leave the concert hall tomorrow night the temperature will have dropped from the spring like 60's to the 30's. We're supposed to experience snow showers and a high temperature that feels like 29 degrees Monday. I have kissed winter goodbye and have no plans to see snow again until at least November, so I am not happy about that forecast. Did I mention my brother is in Florida right now? Stinker. I'm sure we'll have a good time, though. Say a little prayer for our safe travels...and that I don't get caught up in some kind of crowd surfing incident tomorrow night that winds up on sixty people's Facebook pages. Peace out, peeps.

The Next Journey

All my peeps are home finally. Everything feels normal around here again. Those were some weary people I picked up at the airport yesterday evening. I thought I was going to have to get extra carts for their hind ends since their butts were dragging the ground. Hubby, Teen Angel, Sissy, Mama J. and Papa T. were all shuffling to the car with their last bit of energy. While Florida was nice, they were all glad to be home. And they came home with the knowlege that this was the last big trip we will take together.

Mama J. and Papa T. won't be going on any more vacations. It was just too hard on them this time. I think we all knew it by the second or third day of the trip, but no one mentioned it...then. It was the elephant in the room that no one wanted to talk about. When we took pictures at a cook-out Sunday night, we took them knowing it was the last vacation pictures we would probably take, but no one mentioned it...then. I had to brush away thoughts about those sick kids they take to Disney World before they die. Is this what those trips are like, I thought? Bittersweet because you know there won't be anymore?

It was exhausting just getting Mama J. and Papa T. to and from our destinations because of their medical problems. Mama J. is slow, really slow, even with her walker. And Papa T. can't see or hear his surroundings, so he has to have constant guidance, or we'll lose him in a crowd. We had to use wheelchairs and a golf cart at the airport to safely get them to their connecting flights in time. Neither one of them wants to use a wheelchair, especially Papa T., so we didn't even tell him we had one reserved until his fanny was six inches away from the darn thing. Otherwise, it would have been ugly, ugly, ugly much earlier in the day. We've been down that road once before. We felt bad about it but didn't know what else to do.

Papa T. had to have someone lead him around the rental house whenever he went to the bathroom or changed rooms because he couldn't see his way around the house. At home, he is familiar with his surroundings and knows how many steps are between rooms. In a different place, he is completely lost. Imagine living in a strange place for a week while wearing a blindfold and ear plugs. Just stop and think about what that must be like, relying on others to lead you around. It has to be very humbling. He stayed frustrated all week, and his frustrations exacerbated his dementia. The dementia is in such an early stage, though, he is cognizant of his confusion and sometimes jokes about it. On about day two, he told Sissy, "I don't know s**t from shinola". (Don't ask me what shinola is.) We all got a chuckle out of it because he was so sweetly funny, but unfortunately, he was right. About midway through the trip Papa T. turned the elephant loose and announced that this was his last vacation, that it was just too hard to travel, and he didn't want to do it anymore.

Mama J. stayed grouchy all week. Her legs were swollen, and she felt bad, but I think more than anything she was troubled by the realization that she can't travel long distances anymore either. She loves to go places and see new things. This is a hard pillow for her to choke down, and it was only at the end of the trip when she admitted that there would probably be no more big vacations for her.

I can't imagine how hard that must be to give up yet another freedom that comes with youth and/or good health. It's hard enough for the rest of us to accept that there will be no big trip out west in an RV so Papa T. can see the Grand Canyon. Or no more cruises with them in the Caribbean. A journey of another kind has begun, and it's not nearly as fun. As we have for the past nineteen years, we will make this journey together, experiencing new things, sharing some laughs and taking pictures...lots and lots of pictures.

The Friendly Skies

We are headed to Florida Friday for a few days of fun and sun. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m a little apprehensive, only because goofy stuff happens to us when we travel. It seems as if we rarely make it to our destination and back without a bump or two along the way. Twice we’ve battled lost luggage. The first time we flew to San Juan but Hubby’s clothes didn’t, leaving him to spend the first two days of a cruise in a gift shop swimsuit. He was mighty glad to see his underwear when it landed on the pier at St. Thomas. The second time Teen Angel’s suitcase didn’t follow us home from South Carolina, and we spent a frenzied 12 hours tracking it down and getting it shipped home in time for me to wash her clothes and pack them for camp the next day. When the suitcase arrived on our doorstep it had a big hole in the middle of it, and that started a whole new headache with Northwest Airlines trying to get the suitcase replaced. I finally got a new suitcase out of it but not without exhibiting some very unbecoming behaviors.

Illness is another favorite pastime of ours when traveling. We’ve thrown up in some beautiful corners of the world. Teen Angel heaved in the middle of the Magic Express shuttle bus at Disneyworld at 6am the day we left Orlando. That’s how we discovered she is a little susceptible to motion sickness. I too, discovered I get queasy on buses during an all day excursion through the rain forest in Martinique. We made seven stops that day to see the sights, and I threw up between all seven, thanks to a route called “zig zag road”. At each tourist stop I would get a gift sack, throw up in it during the ride and dispose of it at the next stop. I’m all about systems, you know. Fresh pineapple at the first stop? Noooo thanks. Rum sample at the third? Heck no! Isn’t the rain forest beautiful? I don’t know. All I’ve seen is the inside of a gift bag. See the volcano? Don’t bother me now. I’m focusing on breathing. Papa T. takes the prize for vacation illness. He had a bad reaction to his motion sickness patch on a cruise and started acting so odd we seriously thought he’d had a stroke. It took two days of craziness before we read the warning label for the patch and discovered he had six reasons not to use the darn thing. The minute we took it off, he returned to his old self and quit having nightmares about old girlfriends.

The weirdest thing that happened to us occurred at the Memphis Airport. We had only a few minutes between flights, and I barely had time to use the restroom. When I ran back to our gate, I found Hubby standing there with a priest and security. Well, this can’t be good, I said to myself. And how the heck did he get into trouble so fast? I was only gone for a minute, I thought. It turns out there was a wacky lady on our first flight that had smuggled a dog on the plane in her purse. Someone had complained about her, and for some reason she thought it was Hubby. The minute I had left for the restroom she had walked up to him, pulled her false teeth OUT of her mouth and launched into a wild toothless ramble in his face, waving her teeth in the air. Now, Hubby can’t stand strangers getting really close to him, and his patience could fit into a thimble, so it was with great restraint that he told her to put her *&!# teeth back in her head and to back up several steps. She didn’t listen very well. He alerted security, and the airlines launched an investigation onto the whole dog issue. The priest wasn’t a part of the action. He just stood around and watched because it was so entertaining. The rest of the trip home was uneventful, even though we were on pins and needles the whole time because the airlines let the crazy lady on that flight, too…with the dog in her purse. At least she kept her teeth in her mouth.

In a perverse way, I can’t wait for the adventure that’s in store for us this weekend. It does make things interesting. We’ve had more than our share of adventure over the years though, and a little “uneventfulness” would be nice. So if you see the Hula’s in the airport this weekend, just smile and wave and hope for the best. Oh, and keep your teeth in your mouth. We don’t want any trouble.

Gee Whiz

Over the course of my 43 years I have learned a great many things about the opposite sex. I grew up with brothers, after all. But I am still puzzled by several quirks of the male species. At the top of that list is potty stops. For the life of me I do not understand why it ticks a man off to make a restroom stop when traveling by car. Hubby and I were driving to the airport the other morning when I told him I needed to stop. It’s a two hour drive and I thought I could make it all the way, but I couldn’t. I have a bladder the size of a peanut, and have a maximum time limit of an hour and a half between restroom breaks, sometimes less. Since we were driving into a large metropolitan city during rush hour, I did not want to risk getting stuck in traffic with a bloated bladder. I had visions of running down an embankment and whizzing on a bush. I didn’t want half of greater Nashville seeing my naked backside so, with about twenty minutes left in our drive, I asked him to pull over. You would have thought I’d asked him to paint my toenails. “Oh, my God! Can’t you wait just a little longer? We are almost there. It’s just a few more miles to the airport, surely you can wait.” “No. No, that’s why I’m asking you to pull over. It won’t take but a minute.” “Oh, alright, if we HAVE to.” (Insert vigorous huffing and puffing here.)

Now, this is the reaction I get every time we travel by car for any significant distance, and I have to pee. It’s the reaction I used to get from my dad when I was a kid. It’s also the reaction Hubby’s father used to give his family. In fact, just about every male I’ve ever traveled with, has had that kind of reaction. Women don’t do that. If I were traveling with a group of women and one of them asked to pull over, the driver would respond with a big “Sure, honey” and pull over at the nearest exit. Women don’t mind. We understand. Men mind. In fact, they get right down grumpy about it. Hubby’s mood can turn south in a heartbeat with the mere mention of a pee stop. “But I was making good time,” he says. “I’ll lose this Cadillac with the fuzz buster. It will slow us down.” “Yeah, well we’re going to slow down plenty if I pee all over this front seat,” I tell him. He stops, but I have to listen to a whole bunch of grumbling and huffing during the entire stop and another twenty minutes of “we’ll never make up that time” after we get back in the car.

I just don’t understand. It’s not like I take a long time in the restroom. Unlike a lot of women, I get in and get out. No primping, no lipstick, just a pee, a flush and a hand wash. I don’t even take my purse in with me. I want to get to our destination as quickly as Hubby does. Do Nascar drivers get this mad when they have to make a pit stop? If so, that would explain why there are no women in the pit crews. Are men born with a gene that causes them to get mad when they have to stop? If so, THAT would explain why they won’t stop and ask for directions, either.