Tuesday, September 06, 2011

The Vacation Where Everything Broke

Back from this year's epic vacation, and it was (for the most part) excellent!!! We spent 4 nights on Catalina Island, two nights in Carlsbad (for the Lego parks) and 3 nights in San Diego. My logic in planning this year's trip was that usually we spend a few thousand just getting where we're going, as well as a day on each end in airports and flying, then spend a lot of the day just playing at the beach. Might as well stay semi-local and spend the extra money on better food & lodging!!! I think this worked out very well!!!




To get the part where everything broke out of the way, I'll lead off with that part. Once we returned from Catalina we were heading down to Carlsbad, and on the way there stopping in Oceanside to pick up these passes I'd gotten, good for admission to dozens of San Diego area attractions. We were travelling in Janice for the trunk space. As we were driving down a side street, the hangers for the muffler gave out and it started dragging!!! I had just replaced the hangers probably only 6 months ago. There was a parking lot right there, so I pulled off into it and stopped. As luck would have it, there was a Auto Club truck there already. Unfortunately, he didn't have any wire to hang it back up with, so we ended up having to get a flat bed out to haul her to a muffler shop. They didn't have the right hangers in stock, and didn't have time to fabricate new ones, so the guy did a very effective job of wiring up the tailpipe.



It was fairly late by the time we got out of there, so we headed back to the same parking lot we'd been towed from. There's a Joe's Crab Shack in that lot, and while waiting there we'd been discussing eating there, so we did. Cracking crabs takes a while!!! Headed out, and went to start the car, and nothing!!! I've seen this before, bad starter in the most inopportune time. Looked for a lug wrench to bang on the starter with, because that's worked before, and discovered that there is none in that car. Good to know before I have a flat!!! Called AAA again, and the guy had a jack handle that fit the bill. Got her fired up, and I'd been on the phone with my parents. They were good enough to let me borrow one of their cars for the remainder of our trip.



Didn't want to shut the car off again, so we drove down to our next hotel, and left the car running while I checked in and unloaded the trunk. Left the rest of the family, and did the night run back north then back. Made for a late night, but better than the other alternatives.



The next day we went to Legoland for the day. Afterwards, we went to the TGIF on the opposite side of the hotel. On the way back, we spotted a bunny rabbit. Of course, the boys are off chasing it. Unbeknownst to the older boy, there was an edge border by one part of the sidewalk, and he went down, hard. His ankle swelled up fairly nice (funny how you don't know how lumpy ankles are until you're inspecting them...) so I got ice and made up an ice pack. Ended up taking him to the Scripps emergency room, for my second late night in a row. I would have posted his X-ray, but I left the CD with those in my parent's car. Not much to see anyway, it wasn't broken, just a sprain. They splinted him up, and gave him a pair of crutches.



That's almost all that broke, if you don't count the rental wheelchair we got for him the next day at the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park. The screws were coming out of the wheel handles, and they'd click on the side. When they found out, though, they refunded the price of the rental, so it's all good.



Other than that, it was great!!! The zip line course in Catalina is the one thing that everyone says was the best part. The older boy & I went parasailing. The younger boy had wanted to go when we were in Hawaii, but we didn't end up having time, so I was doing that mostly for his benefit, but he chickened out.



Didn't make it to the new Lego water park or sea life aquarium, because the boy's foot was bandaged up for the former, and figured we'd see sea life at Sea World when we made it there. On the big breakdown day, we'd been planning on going to a paintball park, but that got scrubbed. The actual San Diego Zoo we missed, too, as well as Belmont Park.

I'll go into more depth-things we actually did!!!-in further posts!!!