We had a fantastic week at our first destination. We were able to spend a few days with my mom and my sister’s family. The weather was close to perfect. We mostly hung out at the ocean and went on long walks.
The little boy with a hole in his neck loves the sand and the ocean, of course. Sand and water might be a pulmonologists worst nightmare for a trached kid, but look at this guy! How can you not?!
On Day 6, we were headed to a different destination to spend the rest of our trip with Sean’s side of the family. We packed some stuff the night before. We wanted to try and make a somewhat early start the next day. There was about a four hour drive ahead of us.
We had to play quite a bit of Tetris to get all of our luggage and Sam’s medical supplies in the rental minivan. We were all packed and ready to leave by nine-thirty in the morning.
I pressed the start button. Nothing. It’s not like back in the day when you put the key in the ignition and turned it to start your car. I tried again. Nothing, not even a sound. Sean, Will, Abby, and I looked at each other and instantly started laughing. Is this for real!?
Sean and Will got out of the van and popped the hood. Abby and I thought this was pretty funny stuff. Um, what are you guys gonna do?! Neither of you know anything about cars. Gotta give them credit for trying. Hehehe. All four of us had another good laugh about that.
I called the rental car company and after we tried a few tricks they gave us, they decided it was time to send us a tow truck. Bummer. We had to wait for the tow truck to come, which of course, was going to take at least an hour. We decided to get something to eat. The place we wanted to go to was closed. Fitting. We went to the little café in our condo which also had lots of convenient store items right at Sam’s eye level. Oh boy. Not the best place to bring a very busy little boy with special needs. Sorry to everyone else in the café, I’m doing my best.
About an hour and a half later, we walked back to the parking lot where the rental van was. Because we had so much stuff, the rental car company was going to send us two Ubers to bring us to get a new rental vehicle. The more we thought about it, we figured two probably wouldn’t even be enough. We decided I would go to the rental car place myself, get the new vehicle and come back to pick everyone up. This way, we wouldn’t have to unload, load, unload, and load again.
On the way to the rental car place, I got a call from Will telling me the tow truck driver jumped the van and it started. We contemplated keeping the van. The tow truck driver told them, ”It will get you to wherever you need to go, but don’t shut it off.” Hmmmm, probably not a good idea to keep it.
Shorty after, I got to the rental car company. I waited my turn in line and explained our situation. The manager looked at me with a bummed look on his face and said, ”I’m sorry, I already told them on the phone, I don’t have anything big enough here for you. The biggest vehicle I have is that.” He pointed to a very small blue SUV. Ummm, yeah, that’s not going to work. I kindly explained, how unfortunately, it wouldn’t work. Now what?!
The manager told me the airport is the only place that will have a vehicle big enough to accommodate us. Oh no, how far is that?! Thankfully, the airport was only twenty plus minutes away. Thank you Lord!
Soon after, the fam arrived in the van. I could see them laughing when I came out. Apparently, Sean and Will quit playing Tetris. They quickly jammed everything back into the van, which meant Abby and I had to share one seat. Hopefully we can make it to the airport without getting pulled over! Don’t worry, we did. Whew.
We got to the airport and jumped through a few hoops to finally get to the company we rented a vehicle through. A sweet pregnant gal told me to walk through the lot and pick any car I wanted. She said after I picked one, I should grab the keys out of the console and bring them to her. I searched for the biggest vehicle I could find on that lot and quickly grabbed the keys! There was no playing Tetris in this vehicle. We quickly loaded our luggage and Sam’s medical supplies easily into the new vehicle. Five hours later, we were finally on the road to our next beach destination.
We made it there after dark. Our family happily greeted us and helped unload our obnoxious amount of stuff. My sister-in-law and mother-in-law rented a beautiful mansion on the water. No lie, it was literally a mansion, with an elevator and all! It easily accommodated all twenty of us.
We got somewhat settled, did all the Sam stuff, and went to bed.
To be continued…