Trying to Thaw Out

When I was a college student it felt like Christmas break was very short, too short.  However, as it turns out Utah State grants their students an astonishing 3 weeks of reprieve from their studies.  When this was called to our attention Justin and I decided that this was clearly an invitation for us to be out taking a road trip.  We determined that our winter road trips to the desert last year went so well that we should give that another go.  We booked ourselves in for a conservative three days in the timeshare in Tucson.

Naturally, the moment we got outside of the cancellation time frame disaster struck and we found ourselves shelling out money hand over fist to keep our cars running.  There's nothing quite as irritating as car repairs.  I don't know if others feel this way, but when I've already dumped a ton of money into acquiring a vehicle, and operating the vehicle, and insuring the vehicle and conducting routine maintenance on the vehicle, having to dump even more into fixing it just feels like an injustice.  That being said, the trip was booked, some money was already paid, and we decided that we might as well still take this vacation.  Besides, we were very excited about seeing Saguaro National Park.

The first leg of our trip was a short drive from Orem to Las Vegas, well Henderson to be more specific.  We made pretty good time, got checked into our hotel and enjoyed cruising through the halls with Vivian to get her some exercise after the long car ride, and to wear her down a little before bed.  She seemed exhausted when we finally called it a night.  I was therefore somewhat surprised when she didn't sleep well that night, and woke up several times crying and upset.  The next morning she seemed fine, all be it a little tired.  We got packed up and headed downstairs for breakfast.  Standing in the breakfast area with my baby I was completely caught off-guard when she suddenly started vomiting all over the floor, and of course in her alarm over the situation could not be persuaded to stand still and just ralph in one area, but rather deposited three or four pools of barf on the floor.  It was quite upsetting for both of us.  Probably for the hotel staff that acted as though it was a no big deal as well.  After that she seemed her usual self, and we stupidly allowed her to consume a few Cheerios before we got on the road.

Vivian promptly fell asleep in the back of the car, and we had driven for a couple of hours when we heard her throwing up in her carseat.  Justin pulled over, we did some wetwipe cleaning (wetwipes are one of the greatest inventions of all time), and were able to continue on our way (twice as grateful for the windfall of having a rental car with leather seats).  This time I was seated next to her armed with a small styrofoam bowl, that was unfortunately put to use before we were able to find a gas station to stop at and purchase ziplock baggies to replace the styrofoam bowl.  We used one of those, and for the most part we spent the day in the back of the car with her and I dozing, and me rationing her little sips of water.  By the time we arrived in Tucson I was wondering if we should have
taken this trip after all.  Lucky for us, once she was released from the car she seemed to be recovered.

Our first morning in Tucson Vivian woke up acting like she was 100%.  We decided to head straight to the National Park and start the day off with a scenic drive, and a small ecology walk/hike.

 After that we read about a four and a half mile hike that held particular appeal to us because you get to see a Cristate cactus, which is actually a Saguaro cactus with a genetic mutation that occurs in approximately one in 50,000 cacti.  We were very excited about this opportunity.  So, despite the rain clouds overhead, we blasted up the trail, ignoring the sign-in sheet for visitors hiking in the "backcountry."

To our delight, we did in fact see a Cristate cactus, and it was just as spectacular as one might suspect.

We were thrilled.  After snapping way too many pictures we continued down the trail for some distance when Justin noticed that Vivian was missing a shoe.  We had a small disagreement about who should go back for the shoe, but Justin won and said that it should be him because he is faster.  He handed me the baby carrier and darted back down the trail.  I struggled along with the baby carrier for a bit, but had to stop twice to make adjustments because it was adjusted to Justin's frame and not mine.  When I finally got it to where it was relatively comfortable I could see Justin jogging along the trail towards us a little ways away, and I figured he'd catch back up in just a few minutes.  He dropped from sight for a second, I figured the trail took a dip, and I forged ahead.

A picture I stopped to snap along the way

Probably half a mile down the trail Justin still hadn't caught up, and I knew something wasn't right.   Vivian and I turned back to find him. We backtracked quite a ways before we found him limping along at a turtle's pace.  He had some crazy story about running, falling, twisting his ankle, screaming in pain, a snapping noise, and a wave of nausea as he laid in the dirt writhing around in pain before he managed to pull himself together, get back on his feet and start hobbling along down the trail again.

Vivian obviously had to stay on my back for the duration of the hike, so I stopped again to make a few adjustments, and find a suitable walking stick for Justin to help him along.

We had at least two more miles still to go, it was threatening rain, and none of us were equipped to deal with being soaked in 50 degree weather.

The rain clouds looming overhead

Unfortunately we were a pretty slow moving little party.  All the way out Justin would hike behind me making grunting and groaning noises, and when I would turn to ask him how things were going back there he would say something like "I'm fine. It's okay." He delivered these statements in tone that would lead an eavesdropper to believe that it was strange of me to be asking.  A mile or so from the car we started to hear a pack of coyotes, and while they didn't sound terribly close, it's still an unnerving sound when you're in a precarious situation.  The coyotes, sprinkling rain, and a bunch of javelina tracks kept us moving at the fastest pace we could manage (which was not particularly speedy).  We were both ready to be done a long time before we reached the car, and it was a relief to finally arrive back at the trailhead.

On the way back to visitor's center, where incidentally we actually saw a wild javelina, I told Justin that perhaps we should visit an urgent care.

The trip from the car to the sign convinced him that maybe a visit to urgent care was in order.

Predictably he resisted at first, but the pain in his ankle won out and he finally agreed that it might not be a bad idea.  A couple of hours later he was crutching his way out of an urgent care with one of those huge boots on his foot and an x-ray copy of his fractured ankle.  Immediately on return to the timeshare he abandoned the crutches, stripped off the boot and proceeded to limp about doing all sorts of things that he shouldn't have been doing on a broken ankle.

The next morning we woke up late, and had to revisit our plans for the day.  The doctor had repeatedly told him he should spend the day on the couch with his foot elevated.  He never even momentarily took that into consideration.

Prepping for another exciting outing

We had wanted to visit the west district of Saguaro National Park for some morning hiking, visit the Desert Wilderness museum, and tour Biosphere 2.  The hike was clearly out, and Biosphere 2 was eliminated once we learned about the 150+ stairs that are part of the tour, but there was still the desert museum and a scenic drive through the west side of the park.  We were in no rush getting out the door, and Justin reassured me that the museum would be brief, and only cost about $5/person leaving us with money and time to do something else afterwards.  I have no idea where he got this information.  The museum cost $20/person and turned out to be a massive all day affair, with over 2 miles of dirt trails.  After a couple of hours and at least a mile of crutching about Justin looked exhausted, and his exhaustion turned to irritation when he discovered that the snack building had just closed.  The fact that we got to see a live beaver there wasn't even enough to end his rant about the short hours of the snack station.

Although I've been to lots of zoos that claim to have a beaver in residence, this was the first time I've actually seen one.

The museum was actually very cool, we're glad we did it, but I'm not sure that Justin would recommend it to anyone on crutches, and certainly not something to do without bringing along a good supply of snacks.

Near the closed snack station

At the desert tortoise exhibit

Just a nice shot of that absurd little mustache

He sort of collapsed into the passenger seat of the car, and uncharacteristically refused to exit the car again for any of the scenic overlooks and such when we did the scenic drive through the national park before heading back.

*

Just a little something for Meredith that we spotted on the drive back to the timeshare.

The next morning Justin and Vivian sat in the car while I made tons of trips back and forth from our room on the second floor with all of our stuff since Justin wasn't able to help with the loading.  It took forever, but finally we were on our way.  We drove all day and spent the night in a hotel in La Verkin, UT.  The next morning I was the one throwing up at the hotel, and all the way home.  It's not the greatest way to end a trip, and drill the next day was kind of a trying experience, but now we're all seemingly healthy again and trying to figure out a way to budget for another little vacation some time soon.