The Grossest Family Vacation Ever (Also, San Diego is Beautiful)

Midsummer 2007: The freshly minted Mrs. Dude and I relaxed on the beach in Maui and briefly considered never returning to the mainland. Vacation is supposed to be a place to relax and recharge and after our wedding, we were thrilled to do just that. Little did we know it would be a very long time before it happened again.

For many years, our getaways have consisted of trips to Ohio to see my family or trips to Northern California to see hers. Both are enjoyable, though just getting there, either with a car packed so full I need a crowbar to pry the kids out, or a mountain of stuffed suitcases, is a process unto itself. One that usually reminds me why we don’t do it more often.

All the while, those remembrances of the Hawaiian sun lingered and we wanted to do something. Plus, I’d maxed out my vacation time at work and with my family all still on their various summer vacations before starting at three separate schools in the fall, I pined for a getaway. Hawaii was the dream, but this times still an oasis. Maybe for our 10^th?

But one of the great things about Southern California is you can do so many cool things within a few hours drive, whether you like sand, snow or desert. (Alternately, you can be miserable on a two-hour drive that should take 30 minutes, because traffic here makes less than zero sense. That happens much more often.)

So after much consideration, and minimal planning, we packed up the car and headed down the freeway toward the land of Ron Burgundy, San Diego.  People say SD has the best weather in the country, most often 75 degrees, warm and sunny. Eager to get away from two months straight of triple digits, I couldn’t wait to sit by the bay and relax. Hopefully the Junior Dudes would feel the same.

As we made the journey that Sunday afternoon, a group hunger set in, so we stopped in a scenic little town just off Interstate 5 and found a local burrito joint. I ran in to order while Mrs. Dude coordinated the scene on the patio. I won’t get into details, for they are much messier than I care to rehash, but before we got back in the car for the last half hour of our journey, half of us had a fresh set of clothes on.

We rolled into the Bahia Resort, a place whose website flashed great looking amenities, free breakfast and parking, AND seals living on the property. Sold. Plus the location was just a whale’s splash away from Sea World.  The registrar bumped us up to a suite and things were off to a great start. We went straight into the pool to cool off, since it was an unusually toasty 90-degree day. Hopefully it would break by the next day, for our big trip to Legoland. Little did we know that the heatwave was going to be the least of our problems that day.

We went out to grab a bite nearby for dinner and tried to put the boys to sleep. They were beyond thrilled to sleep in a pullout bed for the first time and Mrs. Dude and I were equally thrilled to have our own room, bed and separating door. As we read a few bedtime stories, what sounded like gunshots rang in the distance. I opened up our sliding glass door and looked out to see Sea World’s fireworks just across the water. Painting the sky and reflecting on the water, their unexpected excitement punctuated an overall great day. Then the boys went to bed and we hoped to do the same.

It never quite happens that way, though, and after we stayed up to get situated in the room and everything set for the next day, Mrs. Dude fell asleep. I was still up for a bit, fiddling on the laptop before dropping out around 1:00am.

SQUEAK

What seemed like 15 seconds later, though actually a whopping 15 minutes, was the Little Dude waking up to use the bathroom. Afterward, he come over and said that his bed was wet. Thinking someone had had an accident, I went to investigate and as I felt around the sofa bed, I felt something lumpy, almost like a plate of chili. Apparently the Littler Dude’s earlier bout of GI distress had returned and he must have eaten too much for dinner, as he lost his lunch, dinner and seemingly every other meal he’d ever eaten, all over the bed.

The calm before the barf

Moments like these remind me how grateful I am to have a wife who is calm and organized under pressure. Also, I was thankful that these were not our own barfed-on sheets and pillows. I called for replacements and went to scrub whatever I could as I waited for housekeeping to deliver fresh sets, knowing deep down that I had a greater chance of winning the presidential election than of us going to Legoland the next day. We cleaned up the bed, the boys and ourselves and once again collapsed in our room, hoping that had been the last sleep interruption of the night. Or forever.  

TO BE CONTINUED…

Why I Hate the Winter Olympics

When the Seattle Seahawks annihilated the Denver Broncos earlier this month in the Super Bowl, among other things it meant that self-proclaimed “Football Widows” received their spouses back until training camps begin over the summer. What I personally didn’t anticipate was becoming a Sports Widower myself less than a week later.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I’m a big sports fan. I’m also a long-suffering one as I grew up a Cleveland sports fan. If you’re not a sports fan, I can best explain being a Cleveland sports fan like being the punchline in a nightmare. Anything that could go wrong inevitably does in the most publically embarrassing way. But I’ve grown to live with that. And now that I live on the West Coast with two young sons I seldom make time to sit through many games these days that aren’t Go Fish.  

So how did I come to find myself in the position of asking my non-sports fan wife approximately every 15 minutes every night for the last 2 weeks “is this almost over?” Two words: Winter Olympics.

Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t be any more pro-American if I had a pet Bald Eagle named Uncle Sam. I just can’t get into the Winter Olympics, no matter how half-heartedly I try. As I mentioned, I grew up in the Midwest, about 20 minutes from a place where I could have gone skiing every winter for 20+ years and opted to never do so. Intentionally. Unlike Elsa from Frozen, the cold always bothered me anyway.

Over the decade-plus my wife and I have been together, I’ve tried watching some of the Winter Olympic Games with her. However, beyond that I have a hard time recognizing it as a sport, spending time watching sequined couples “Ice Dancing” just doesn’t do it for me.

From what I’ve seen the primary objective of at least half of the Winter Olympic events could be listed as “not dying”. Hell, there’s a sport where the “athlete” lies face down on a tiny metal sled going 80+mph down a curvy icy chute, which is actually called “Skeleton”. Foreshadowing much?

This Skeletoner is laying still like a corpse.
How is this a sport?

Then there’s the Biathlon which combines that natural duo of skiing and shooting a rifle which so many people seemingly do every day. I’d call that Polar Military Training before I’d call it a sport. What about Cross Country, which most people who live in cold weather places refer to as “walking on snow”.

And don’t even get me started on Curling, a “sport” which my housekeeper could likely medal in based on her expert-level proficiency at removing piles of Cheerios from the floor with a broom.

As if their "sport" didn't make them look silly enough...

I was sitting with my wife the other night while she watched the 1^st of something like 86 rounds of some skiing event and kept hearing the announcers mention Rosa Khoutour, which I assumed was some sort of Russian fashion brand. Turns out it’s a mountain. Who would have known?

The centerpiece of the Winter Olympics is always the Figure Skating events, and those have eaten up a big chunk of my TiVo for the last 10 nights. No interest. I didn’t even like Blades of Glory and that starred Ron Burgundy and Napoleon Dynamite, two of the funniest dudes from the last decade.

Part of my ancestry actually stems from Russia and I still couldn’t be less interested in a “Homeland vs. Birthland” story line if NBC created one specifically about me, like the packages they show about athletes suffering from hangnails, misplaced iPhones and other tragedies.

The truth is that the most interesting part of the Olympic coverage to me so far has been Bob Costas’ Pink Eye, which would be a great name for a punk-rock band. Bob’s Oozing Oculars (another good band name) has kept me wondering what kind of medical attention he’s getting that he couldn’t work at an event he’d probably be preparing 6 months to a year in advance for. Who is his MD, Dr. Frankenstein?

The good news is that the games will be over in a few more days and I’ll get 4 glorious sequin-less years until they resume. How long until baseball season begins?