Comedy of Errors

It sounded like such a good idea.  A somewhat impromptu weekend getaway, just the four of us. M took a day off of work, we made reservations for a hotel in New Hampshire right near Story Land, a little-kid-friendly amusement park. Brilliant!  You know, in theory.

First, we couldn’t go until Saturday evening.  Between swimming class, a quilt guild meeting (shutup!), and a baby shower, followed by a quick visit to a friend, we didn’t hit the road for the 3-hour drive until after 6PM.  But we made liberal use of the in-car DVD player, and all was peaceful for an hour and a half, until we decided to stop for dinner.

And I realized I left my purse at our friend’s house.  With my wallet in it (blessedly, not my phone) and the travel potty. Hopefully no mid-road needs to go.  Ah well, we’ll survive.

Arrive at the hotel after 10, our room has a separate alcove for the kids with two twin-sized beds. Huzzah! Except Rebecca has an over-tired new-place meltdown and absolutely refuses to sleep in her bed. She will only sleep in Daddy’s bed.  Good thing there were two queen-sized beds, so I got to sleep in relative peace while M got kicked in the shins all night.

Wake up in the morning and look outside.  It’s raining.  Not misting. Not drizzling. POURING BUCKETS of rain and 60 degrees.  No matter, the hotel has a heated indoor pool.  That’s closed for renovations.

OMFG.

OK, OK. All is not lost. The sister resort down the road has an indoor water park, which they will give us complimentary passes to. Whew. We get in the car and head there, only to realize it’s 10:25 and the park doesn’t open until 11.

Drive around. See lots of super cool, fun activities that the kids would love. If, you know, it wasn’t pouring fricking rain.  Find a toy store. Why not? Shop owner says this is one of her best days in the shop, ever. Rain is great for business. Lovely.

Get to the water park. Despite not liking getting splashed or water in their faces, kids have a blast.

Late arrival the night before meant a late start to the morning, a late lunch, and a nap that didn’t start until after 2:30pm. At least this time Rebecca agreed to sleep in her own bed.

They didn’t wake up until 5PM.  We gloomily peered out at the continuing rain. M and I weakly tried to come up with a plan for dinner, and then exchanged pitiful looks. I don’t remember which one of us said it first.

“Maybe we should just leave.”

We had only planned to stay until the following morning or early afternoon, anyways. At this point, it seemed ridiculous to bother sleeping in strange beds another night.  We thought about it for a couple of minutes, and then started throwing our crap back into our suitcases. Cut and run.

The front desk people were not only friendly and understanding of our desire to leave early, but were even kind enough not to charge us for the second night (thank you, Fox Ridge Resort! We’ll be back, someday!)

Back in the car, more winding northern New Hampshire highways. Most of our weekend closely resembled this, except with a lot more water on the windshield.

On the up side, it started to break up, and my kids saw their very first real rainbow.

Stopped for yet another fast food meal, put in Mary Poppins for the last stretch on the road. Didn’t even bother with the headphones, and we all sang along.

Did I mention how my van reacted to all this driving?  Aww yeah, not one, but TWO warning lights.

Anyways, back home, safe and sound. Felt good about the decision to leave.  Woke up to a beautiful day at home.  A beautiful day with no milk or breakfast food in the house.  No worries, Daniel and I will just climb into Daddy’s car and head to the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru in our pajamas for some milk and bagels.  Got halfway there (and, mind you, there is no place in Massachusetts that is greater than half a mile from a Dunkin Donuts, so we hadn’t gone far), and M called my cell.  “I need you to turn around right now, work called, data center is down and I’m the closest. I have to go fix it.”

Nevermind that this was still his day off.  His boss forgot, and called him anyways. So he went to work.

And that was the straw that broke this camel’s spirit.

Honestly, I had maintained a relatively good sense of humor throughout this entire fiasco. It was still an adventure, something different, and we were together. Wohoo!

And then he had to get called in.  No big morning outing to the zoo or the Children’s Museum or something else fun that you might do when Daddy’s home on a weekday.  Just me & the kids, solo again.  The comedy of errors just plain stopped being funny.

Fine. We’ll go to the grocery store.

Except I still don’t have my purse. I used the last of my in-car cash stash to get breakfast.

Screw it. Back to the same playground we go to every freaking week.

M came back after a few hours, thankfully.  So, you know, I could drive the hour (each-way) to my friend’s house to go pick up my purse and hope to not get pulled over on the way.  At least I got to do it with no kids and the Glee soundtrack blaring the whole time.

This Griswold Family Vacation is now over, and let’s all be grateful for that.