We made it to the beach

We got to the island 24 hours later than we expected but it's been great. The first two days were cloudy and we had a big rainstorm but today was beautiful.

 

Long day

We left the house at 3:15 a.m. to catch our 5 a.m. flight. All was well until we ran into a storm outside of Dallas. The pilot tried to fly around it, but after circling for a period of time, we had to divert and land in Oklahoma City. We sat on the runway for five hours. We made it to Dallas, and we got on standby. Eventually, we got seats, but then that plane was delayed. When we finally got on, Sean had a nosebleed.

It was a long time to sit on a non-moving plane.

The pilot let us take the dogs on the tarmac for a potty break. After four hours on the plane, a flight attendant borrowed the dogs and took them to the cockpit. She said the pilot needed some pet therapy. It was adorable, and I wish I had taken a picture.

 

They left the light on for us

 We tried to fly to Tallahassee on Wednesday. Our plane left at 5 am. We were 15 minutes out of Dallas when the pilot announced he had to fly north and circle until the weather was safe to land. Later, he announced that we were surrounded by severe weather and running low on fuel, and we diverted to Oklahoma City to wait out the storm. We sat on the runway in Oklahoma for 5 hours. We got to Dallas around 4.  At 10:00 pm, we were seated on standby and left for Tallahassee.

We planned to pick up our rental car at the airport and drive to St George Island.  We arrived in Tallahassee, and the rental agency was closed; NO CARS were available.  

The airport was chaotic; we had no car or place to stay. Don was sick and miserable, Sean was tired, hungry, and had a massive nosebleed, and my brain was misfiring. I felt overwhelmed and annoyed that the burden of solving our problems was mine alone.  Sean was trying to find the luggage, Don was walking the dogs, and I was working myself into a psychosis.

I had to find a hotel that allowed dogs. It was after 1 a.m. when I started scrolling through the hotels on Expedia and saw that Motel 6 had outside stairs. My sleep-deprived brain said, "Cool, Don and Sean, wait outside. I get the key, and we will take the dogs to our room; no questions, no worries, easy solution."

I called 1800 Motel 6, talked to someone in India, and got a reservation.  I ordered a Lyft. When we got in the car, the driver questioned my Motel 6 choice, asking if it was a joke. I asked him if it was in a bad part of town, and he said, “I won’t comment, but I see things as a driver, lots of things, nasty things.” That sounded a little ominous, but I was committed to my plan.

Five miles later, we pulled up to Motel 6; our driver dropped us off and peeled out, leaving dirt and gravel flying. It was dark and foggy, there was lots of graffiti, and it looked sketchy, but we only needed a place to sleep for six hours. I walked to the lobby and tried to open the door, but it was locked. A woman inside stood up and pointed to a bulletproof banker-type window. Somewhere in my cloud of fatigue, a faint alarm bell rang, but I stomped it down.

I told the woman I had made a reservation. She looked confused and asked, “Here?” I said, “Yes, do you have rooms.” She said, “Yes.”  I told her I’d made a reservation over the phone.  Confused, she repeated, “For here?” “I thought so,” I said.

She looked at me like I had two heads and said, “I need to explain a few things going on at the property; we don’t have phones, internet, or keys.” “You don’t have Keys?” I said, confused. She said they were out of the plastic keys and that she would walk us to our room and open our door. So much for sneaking my dogs in, but at this point, I don’t think my dogs were on Motel 6’s radar of problems.

Tired, overwhelmed, and out of ideas, I asked, “Is this place safe?” She said, “Yes.” I asked, “Are you safe?” She said, “Yes.” Fine, we need to sleep for six hours, take us to a room.

We walked up a flight of cement stairs to room 212. We lumbered behind the receptionist with our dogs. She opened the door. We were speechless. The curtains were hanging unconnected from the rods, the furniture was falling apart, the walls were filthy, and the 1960s door had a worn-out sticker that said, “Keep locked for your safety,” but there was no lock. Fortunately, we didn’t need a lock. We had 14 pounds of Maltese and Yorkie for protection.

I pulled back the blankets; the sheets looked relatively clean. I sniffed; they smelled like laundry soap and cigarettes. I just wanted to sleep. Sean was freaked out. He asked, “How much sex juice do you think is on this bed?”  “About 20 year’s worth,” I answered.  I walked into the bathroom and sat on the toilet. The toilet seat was not connected to the toilet; the seat flew into the bathtub, and I hit the wall.  The bathtub was so vile that I wouldn’t use it to bathe a stray dog. After I peed standing up, I saw there was NO toilet paper. I asked Don to call the front desk for toilet paper. We laughed when he picked up the phone; the phones were disconnected.

When Don returned from asking the woman behind the bulletproof glass for toilet paper, he said she said they didn’t have any toilet paper in the motel but said she would try to find some. What third-world part of Florida are we staying in?  Maybe she could have led with “we have no toilet paper” before mentioning no internet, phone, or keys.

A few minutes later, the receptionist left the safety of her bulletproof glass, knocked on our door, handed Don half a roll of toilet paper, and left. Sean is losing his mind, “Is that used?” he asked. Don and I are starting to find some humor, “looks like it.” Sean has reached his breaking point and has tears in his eyes. “I’m not sleeping here,” he said.  “Well, you can’t sleep in the car because we don’t have one, and if you are thinking about sleeping in the bathtub, I’d take a look first, Princess,” was my response.

 I helped Sean pull off the blankets to check for bedbugs, roaches, poop, needles, meth, heroin, dead humans, or working prostitutes, and we found none. We removed the blanket and top sheet and left a single, relatively stain-free sheet on the bed. Sean slept on top of that sheet in two layers of clothes with a hoodie over his head. I don’t think he moved the entire night.    

We slept. At 6 a.m., I woke up agitated, ready for this experience to end. I waited until it was light and then woke up Don and Sean. The place looked worse in the light of day. As we were walking to meet the Uber, we passed rooms with smashed roaches on the windows and no curtains. We returned to the airport, picked up a rental car, and continued our planned vacation.

 I don’t plan to stay in a Motel 6 again, but the memory lives on. We have stayed in many hotels, motels, B&Bs, and VRBOs, but nothing compares to you, Motel 6. Nothing compares to you!

 

 

Low Country Boil and Gingerbread houses

 

We had our family's Christmas party on Thursday before. We had a crab and shrimp boil. We made gingerbread houses, and Alika had fun unwrapping a ball of prizes with an oven mitt game. It was fun.

Connor's Christmas program

Connor's preschool Christmas program was adorable. Connor is so excited about holidays. He is counting the days until Christmas.

 

He really likes the Snowman theme

My birthday

We went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse for my birthday.

Connor pretending to be asleep, making little snoring noises.

 

CASA kids

I've got two separate CASA cases now. One I've had for a year, a teenager paraplegic from a car accident. I've been helping with wound dressing changes and checking in on him every few weeks. He has a nurse who took care of him at Primary's during the accident who is devoted to him.

This new little kiddo has been in an LTAC since she was 6 months old. I can't imagine. I've seen her there for years; I didn't know anything about her. It's been fun getting to know her.
 

Staying busy

 I finished up my Ombudsman training this week. In addition to my CASA cases, I advocate for residents in care facilities. It's been exciting and keeps my brain occupied. For the first time, I don't know how many years I feel like writing about some of the cases. I am considering starting an advocacy blog. I quit writing after I left Pioneer Valley. I am trying to remember having something published when I worked at SLRMC. It's crazy how much has changed. Writing for magazines is not a thing any more; it's all writing for media.

Play day

Steph had some spinal injections for her back pain, which caused an allergic reaction. We picked the kids up and took them out for lunch and to play. Connor didn't come. He had a cough.

Bird would run all the way up the slide. I didn't realize until Alika pointed it out on a video that she was whacking her head on the padded bar. It didn't seem to stop the silly girl.

 

Thanksgiving

 

I really didn't get any great Thanksgiving pictures. Brie came over and spent the night, and she and Sean went skiing first thing Friday on SnowBasins' opening day.

Kids played

We ate!

Random Silliness

Sean makes Vally jealous with his Hello Kitty shirt.

Bird's chapstick art. Alika thought it was a glue stick and told Birdie not to put it on her lips.

Connor dunked Mario. He took Mario and Luigi home, and the next time he came over, he asked, "Where's Mario and Luigi?" I said, "At your house," and he said, "Oh yeah."