NOT AGAIN!

Montana

September 2013

Maddie 13

Kier 10

Cora 7

I think some vacations are fated to fall into ruin. And if ever there was a trip where the “vacation fates” cackled and menacingly rubbed their hands together as they planned, it was our vacation to Glacier National Park in Montana.

It was intended to be an anniversary trip for Joel and I and for our friends Bret and Dawn Lowell. We had celebrated our 16^th anniversary in August and they were celebrating their 20^st anniversary that month. But, seven Year old Cora had been diagnosed with type one diabetes a mere 5 months prior to this trip, and so this added a certain degree of complication.

The plan was to leave our three kids with my parents. We spent several months beforehand preparing them for this weekend. They had learned to calculate carbs; give meal time insulin with the insulin pen; give long lasting insulin with the syringe; they had learned emergency procedures for dangerously low and dangerously high blood sugars. We had gone over the daily routine (including middle of the night blood sugar checks). I think I had even made detailed spread sheets for everything from signs of low blood sugars to the average carbohydrate content of just about everything under the sun. I'm not saying that no one felt nervous about the weekend, but they were certainly as prepared as they possibly could be.

And then, two days before the weekend, my dad got sick; head cold, nasty cough, fever-- the works. Okay, we thought, we could still do this. We had another grandma waiting in the wings. Grandma Janie had also learned the ropes. She agreed, she would be happy to take the kids for the weekend. Slightly frazzled by the hiccup, we none the less had a workable plan. Then, one day before our scheduled departure, Grandma Janie can down with the same nasty virus!

It would be a squeeze, and it certainly wasn't the trip we were planning, but maybe we could turn the couples trip into a family trip. We called the Lowells and they were amiable a family trip. We had a two bedroom vacation house near Glacier National Park in Montana. The kids would be sleeping on the floor in their parents rooms – so much for a romantic anniversary get-away.

“Alright” we thought, “we got that glitch out of the way”--

“Not so fast!” the vacation fates cackled. And then the weather reports came in. The weather over the northwestern Wyoming looked “iffy”.

It was at this point that I asked, “At what point do we call it, and say this vacation isn't meant to be?”

Joel's response was, “not yet. We still have options. We can go to the south of the Tetons. This can still work.”

By morning the weather over Colorado was somewhat “iffy” as well. Low cloud had settled over the Front Range. I'm not exactly sure how low they were but I do know it seemed like as soon as the wheels were up, all we could see was white. This was Joel's first take on into instrument conditions and he told me later that if he had realized exactly how poor the visibility was, we wouldn't have taken off.

The clouds were low, but they also were not very thick, so within 20 minutes we had popped out the other side and were skimming along the tops. The Rocky Mountains poked up though the low clouds in an ethereal “Middle Earth” sort of way. We had a strong head wind that day and both Joel and I noticed an occasional surging as the airplane moved through the sky. We figured it must be gusty as well.

Around noon, we landed in Big Piney Wyoming. This was our designated rendezvous point with the Lowells. It was also our lunch spot. We pulled out the lunch bag and headed into the FBO. After bringing in our lunch and Cora's insulin bag, I realized that we had left the waters in the plane. I ran back out to get them, and my three kids followed-- somehow locking the door to the FBO in the process! This was a problem because, not only was our lunch in there, but so was the entire bag of insulin and all the diabetes emergency supplies. Fortunately we had not yet given Cora any lunch insulin yet, so she was not a “blood- sugar time bomb” at that moment. Still, I think I may have said some not very nice things to my children at that moment about not leaving belonging unattended and how did they lock the door anyway!

There was a phone number on the door, and while my phone was locked inside, Joel's was not, so we used it to call the number. Within five minutes someone had showed up to unlock the door. Few, one crisis was averted!

After Lunch and meeting up with the Lowels, we headed, caravan style, to the west of the mountains and then north toward Montana.

Cora asked that I ride in the back. This was our first big flight since her diagnoses of Diabetes and it turns out that the feeling of a low blood sugar was masked by the vibrating of the airplane. As a result she had been feeling funny all morning. We no longer had the Cherokee (you can read that story in the YUMA chapter). We were now flying a Piper Saratoga. The Saratoga has club seating, which meant I was riding backwards. Usually these seats are reserved for the dogs and for Kier, who isn't bothered by airsickness. I don't get airsick, but still am not a big fan of the sensation of flying backwards.

There I was, in the backseat, facing the wrong way, when I felt the plane slow down, when I heard the engine noise quiet, when I felt my stomach in my throat. I remembered exactly what that all meant. I craned my neck around in time to see Joel flick the key back to center. He turned and looked back. I don't think he even said anything to me. He didn't have to, we both knew. Magnito trouble. Again. Same problem, different plane.

The Lowels in their Moony were just ahead of us, so Joel radioed them to let them know what was going on. Then he radioed the nearest airport, Idaho Falls, to tell them we would be coming. The Lowels followed us in. Unlike our experience in the Cherokee, where we were almost still right over the airport, on this trip, we had a tense 30 minute flight to the airport.

Once we arrived, the boys went off to see the aviation mechanics. Dawn and the kids and I waited....and waited... The kids played hide and seek in the massive FBO building, wallowed on the floor in the pilot lounge, and were generally too loud and antsy after the long, stressful flight. We waited some more. Cell phone coverage was spotty and the guys were unreachable. It occurred to Dawn and I that we should start thinking about things like dinner, a car, maybe a place to stay. It turned out this was a near impossible task!

It seemed there was some sort of parents night at a near by university in Idaho and all the hotels and rental cars were booked up for the next 100 miles! Surely that is hyperbole, right. No cars or hotels for a 100 miles? Because of a collage parent's night? That's what I thought. But we called hotel after hotel, car rental after car rental-- nothing, for 100 miles. I even asked if we could spend the night at the FBO,and the heartless women said, “no”. I was beginning to envision our little family huddled up on the concrete beside a hanger, fighting over the 2 emergency sleeping bags in the plane.

Not only was this the wrong weekend to need a rental car, or a hotel room, it was also a bad week to need an airplane mechanic. Turns out that most of the mechanics were busy deer hunting that week, leaving only the youngest apprentice (who wasn't approved to do anything it seemed). After considerable begging, pleading and insisting that he knew what the problem was, Joel convinced the man to look into the magnito-- in the morning.

It was getting dark and the Lowels had to fly over mountains in order to arrive at our destination in Montana. They clearly felt bad leaving us to our unknown fate. But, what could be done. We were less likely to find lodging for two families then for one. As they were leaving, Bret commented that he had had luck once or twice renting a car from a dealership. This sparked an idea from the FBO lady (who turned out not to be so heartless after all). She knew the son of the owner of the two big car dealerships in town-- and he was a student pilot!

She gave him a call and, still in his date night duds, he picked us up from the airport, drove us to the dealership, handed us the keys to a car and told us we could “google some rates and that WE could tell HIM how much we would pay for the rental when we got back into town on Monday”. I'm not even sure we signed anything or gave him a driver's license before we drove off.

The drive from Idaho Falls to Glacier National Park is over 400 miles, and we did indeed go over 100 miles before we found a hotel for the night. It seemed like even more because, for a significant amount of it, we got stuck behind the most unbelievably huge and slow piece of equipment. We never did figure out what it was, but we can tell you it moved at about 5-10 miles per hour and took up both lanes of the two lane state highway!

In the meantime, the Lowels were having airplane troubles of there own. Their flight had gone fine but upon landing they had a spectacularly flat tire. They spent a significant amount of time dealing with their flat tire.

All in all, I think the break down of our “anniversary trip” went something like this: 10% flying; 25% dealing with logistical problems; 30% driving; 35% enjoying beautiful crystal clear rivers and lakes, fabulous scenery, and good company; and 0% romance.

Our time in Pergatoiry-- or should that be purgatory?

Pergatoiry River Valley

June 2012

Maddie 11

Kier 9

Cora 6

I hate High-wing airplanes. Joel tells me my disdain is unwarranted, that the reason the two flights in a Cessna were so bumpy is because it was late-June and they were afternoon flights when the hot air is rising. None the less, I maintain my feeling that the wings belong on the bottom of the plane. That way you can look down and see that the wings are still there. At any rate, two of our most bumpy flights took place in a beautiful, near new (leather seats and all) Cessna 152 while the paperwork for the battered Cherokee still sat in insurance purgatory. 

The first such flight was, I kid you not, not more then 20 minutes from take off to landing. Still it was long enough for both girls to toss their cookies, but not long enough that we thought to bring barf bags or extra clothes. Yep, that was a huge oversight!, and so much for those shinny new leather seats! Not only that but a Cessna 152 carries 4 people-- leaving one Shaklee family member without a seat. So this little 20 minutes flight from Centennial Airport in Denver to Rocky Mountain Metro in Broomfield required several hours of planning and driving to get everyone to the same air show at about the same time. We had to pick up food, drop Kier off with our airplane friends, the Lowels, and then drive from their

house (which is significantly closer to Metro Airport) back to Centennial airport. On the other hand, this convoluted method of arriving at the airshow did save us the cost of admission--just don't ask about the cost of plane rental and av-gas-- and allowed us the squeeze in landing between B52s and Japanese Yaks.

A few weeks later we were once again crammed in the 152 (Kier was once again temporarily adopted by the Lowels and their Moony) and bouncing across the sky on our way to Purgatoire River Valley. Seriously, who goes to Purgatoire on vacation! The good news is that this time no one needed the barf bags which we had the foresight to remember, the bad news was that a strong head wind made the trip take forever. And, once we reached the airport in La Junta that head wind became a wicked crosswind across the run way. One thing to know about wind and airplanes is that it pushes the airplane around a lot more then it does a car. So, if the wind is coming perpendicular to the direction you want to travel and your airplane is pointed straight, you are not going to get where you want to go. Therefore the pilot must point the airplane at an angle; they call this crabbing because, like a crab, you end up “walking” sideways-- it's a strange sensation. If you think about this for a moment you'll realize the problem that arises when the wheels of said “sideways moving” airplane hit the tarmac of the “not sideways moving” runway. In order fix this problem the pilot puts the plane in a slideslip as you near the runway. In a slideslip the airplane has one wing tipped up and one tipped down. This changes the airflow over the wings and results in less push on the plane-- it also means that the plane lands on one wheel. As you can imagine its a tricky maneuver. And being in a light plane makes it even trickier. Joel was all over the rudder peddles to keep the plane in the proper “not too much, not too little” angle. And I was squirming all over my seat, because I'm sure somehow my shifted weight makes all the difference in how the plane handles. (No?) We, of course, landed unscathed, but apparently gave our friends quiet the “airshow”.

Once on the ground, the real adventure began. For one thing it was crazy hot in La Junta that weekend. We were tent camping at the near by KOA and could have saved ourselves the trouble of packing those bulky sleeping bags-- we certainly didn't need them. In fact what we really needed was some sort of a tent air conditioner! I'm pretty sure the over night low was still somewhere in the 80s that night. Brett's (Lowell) solution was to take a cold shower fully clothed before entering their tent. The result was apparently a somewhat effective human evaporative cooler in their tent. On the other hand, our family, not knowing this trick, just spent the night sweating it out on top of our sleeping bags.

The stated purpose of this trip into Purgatorie River Valley (also called Picketwire Canyonlands-- although in our collective opinion Purgatorie is a much more fitting name) was to take a ranger led trip into the park to see the largest dinosaur tracksite in North America. According to the Forresty Services website, over 1,300 dinosaur footprints extending over ¼ of are visible in the canyon.

Access to the site is strictly controlled. There are only two ways to visit: 1) hike, bike or horseback the 17+ miles in the scorching hot sun, or 2) take one of the two or three yearly four wheel drive Forest Service guided tours into the canyon. We opted for the ranger led trip-- a decision which turned out to be very wise indeed, given the soaring temperatures that day.

We arrived at the Forestry Service office mid-morning to join the four-wheel caravan of about 10 vehicles that would make the trek into the canyon that day. We had flown into La Junta and, it being a small town that generally doesn't even make it to “dot on the map” status, finding a rent-able four wheel vehicle was a bit of a trick. But, Bret was determined. He had found us a car dealership that was willing to rent us a Suburban for the weekend....as long as we didn't take it “off roading”. We reasoned that we would in fact be “on roads”; they would be dirt and forestry service road, but roads none-the-less. Our conscious almost clear, we set off into the bottom of Purgatorie.

Our tour took us past a cliff wall decorated with ancient petroglyphs, into bottom of the canyon and through the homestead of the pickitwire farm and of course along the bottom of the river where we followed in the gigantic footprint of million year old dinosaur tracks. The day was insanely hot. The car thermometer showed 108 much of the day. The forest ranger reported that his handheld thermometer read 118 at one point-- we were dubious, as that would have set an impressive record for Colorado. But at some point the difference between 108 and 118 is immaterial-- both are crazy, dangerous HOT. Between short forays into the inferno we turned the AC up full blast and guzzled gallons of water. Remarkably, no one in the entire caravan of cars ended up with heat stroke!

The exploration over, we all drove out of the canyon and started back on the dirt road to town. And that is when the inevitable happened-- A flat tire! In the 108 (+?) degree temperatures we all piled out of the rental car to gape at the very flat tire. We were stuck, on a dirt road, miles from any sort of main road, in a car we we not supposed to take off road (although technically we were back on a road by the time the flat tire occurred....) Fortunately for us, we were not the last car of the caravan to make the trip out. A kindly couple in a “decked out to the hilt” jeep pulled up behind us. We have had more then one mishap while four wheeling and I've noticed that four wheel people are always very helpful-- I think it may have to do with getting to use their stash of emergency gear with out having to endure the emergency themselves. What ever the reason we are eternally grateful that they pulled over and had the right gear to temporarily patch up the tire so we could drive (rather then walk!) the rest of the way to town.

But now, what to do about the obviously damaged tire? It was decided that a new tire should be purchased in order to hide our transgressions. The men went off to procure said tire, which took an inordinate amount of time. The women tried to cool and placate hot, tired hungry children with a swimming pool and ice cream. After a dinner of by the slice pizza and pop, we climbed into our steaming hot tents for another night in the KOA before flying out as early as possible the next morning to avoid the heat of the next day.

But strange as it may seem, as we drove across Denver to go pick Kier up from the Lowel's house, I remarked to Joel what an interesting trip it was and that I couldn't imagine sharing that trip with anyone but the Lowel's. And so there you have it, in Purgatorie we learned the value of friends (and that misery loves company ;). Although, a some point Dawn pointed out that her parents used to just have friends over for dinner and cards..... and at that moment, that sounded like a much better idea!

That time when the “Blood Sugar Gods” Spit in Our Face

That time when the “Blood Sugar Gods”

Spit in Our Face

Carlsbad/ Phoenix Trip (Part 2)

March 2016

Maddie 14

Kier 12

Cora 9

As always while on an airplane trip, we had been watching the weather forecast. We were well aware that the following day, the day we were planning to leave Carlsbad New Mexico and head to Phoenix Arizona, was expected to bring 50+ mile per hour winds. Yikes! Winds like that were likely to leave our little planes grounded for the day. This left us with a choice. Either forfeit the price of a night in our vacation rental and “get out of Dodge” while we could, or stay an extra, unexpected night (or two) – and pay for that. Either way we would be wasting some vacation dollars.

We have been stuck on a number of vacations, so when it comes to betting on the weather, “getting out while the getting' is good” tends to be our policy. Bret and Lance had joined us for this half of our vacation. The rest of their spring break plans were in the southeast, so they agreed with the leave early option.

That morning, the boys decided that before heading to the cavern we should stop by the airport to get the gas orders started. They were rather flabbergasted when the two linemen asked if they wanted aviation gas or jet fuel! Determining that anyone who did not know which fuel to put in a single engine aircraft should NOT be left alone with TWO different fuel trucks and two airplanes, we stayed long enough to see them pull out the correct fuel truck. Apparently we should have stayed to supervise a little longer because in the afternoon, when we returned, Bret found an oil slick in front of his plane and the plane its self splattered with oil. This was particularly awful because he and Lance had spent no less then 4 hours washing and waxing the plane just 2 days earlier!

On the bright side, the weather gods smiled on us for the night. Despite the fact that ridiculous winds were predicted for the following day, most of the flight to Phoenix was smooth. Much of it took place in the dark. It was a beautiful full moon night and the stars were shinning bright.

On the other hand, the diabetes gods were not so generous and, given the fact that we forgot to unhook her insulin pump, 45 minutes into the flight Cora's blood sugar was a disturbing 42. If the pump is not disconnected at take off and landing the air pressure changes at different altitudes cause an unmetered amount of insulin to be forced out of the tubing at inopportune times! Fortunately a juice box corrected the problem.

After arriving in Phoenix, we enjoyed the next three days in the heat of the Sonora Desert.

We viewed Petroglyphs, walked around the Audubon nature preserve, toured the “Mystery Castle”, visited the Science Museum, enjoyed the company of family and friends and took pictures in the rose garden, all while Colorado was buried under a surprise two feet of snow.

The bad news was that this snow storm had a sibling. AND The plane was expected to be tucked back into the hangar at Rocky Mountain Metro Airport by Sunday because it was reserved by another club member. We plotted and calculated how we would manage to slip in through the small window of time between the two storms. As it turned out the window was smaller than we anticipated and we didn't make it!

We left Phoenix early on Friday (a day earlier then originally planned)in order to beat the storm that was expected to hit Colorado late Friday night and last until Saturday night. The flight started out relatively benign, but things started getting rough as we rounded the mountains around Santa Fe. We had already anticipated lunch in Santa Fe and it was a welcome break after the last 30 minutes of bouncing.

We borrowed the courtesy car, left our pooches on the patio of the FBO under the supervision of the kind linemen, and went for lunch. At lunch I lobbied for spending the night in Santa Fe. After all, we had some friends that I knew would be in Santa Fe on vacation the next day, and it seemed like a good excuse to spend a day in artsy Santa Fe. Joel vetoed my vote, and I guess since he is the one with the means of transporting us home, his vote counted for more than mine.

Joel phoned the air traffic briefer who was not as pessimistic about the sky conditions as I was (of course he was sitting in an office not an airplane that day, so that might account for some of his optimism...)

From the word “Go”, the flight that afternoon was awful. We were bounced all over the sky-- up, down and side to side! I alternately grabbed the “O-S” handle and gripped the sides of my seat in turn. I counted off the minutes that slowly ticked by, waiting for enough time to have passed that I could reasonably claim I could take it no more. As it happened, I never had to “tap out” because circumstance caused Joel to decide on his own that we should divert and land in, you guessed it, Pueblo.

When you think about it there are really very few requirements for a good barf bag. They must be opaque, they must NOT break, and they must be easy to open. Cora's barf bag failed on one of the later two requirements causing a mess in the back of the plane. Allow me to point out some obvious differences between a car sickness incident and a airsickness incident: 1) in a car you can roll down the windows giving fresh air to all the passengers and clearing away the unpleasant smells, and whats more 2) you can usually immediately pull the car over and clean up the mess. Neither of these are true in an airplane!

I urged the kids to find something to contain the vomit (and especially the vomit smell!) Nothing could be found. In the end, and much to Kier's dismay, I insisted that they cover it with Kier's favorite sweatshirt.

After landing and cleaning up, we discovered that (a) Cora's coat had been left behind and now that her sweatshirt was, shall we say, unwearable, she was without any warm clothes as a snowstorm was approaching; and (b) that despite having just tossed her cookies Cora's blood sugar had somehow managed to climb into the 200s.

This was the moment when I epicly failed at the that blood sugar math test. I figured that, because of the vomited up carbs, the insulin we gave Cora at lunch would be enough to solve the high blood sugar problem. For the record, this assumption had absolutely no basis; it had been hours since her lunch insulin had been given. None-the-less, in a moment of fear induced stupidity, I chose not to give the insulin to correct the high blood sugar.

Before hopping back in the airplane to finish the flight, we did a quick look-see at the radar and found that the window before the storm had indeed snapped shut. We would not be making it home that night. We decided that, since we could see as far as Colorado Springs and it had an airport located closer to the town, we would continue an extra fifteen minutes north before calling it a day.

Once settled in the hotel in Colorado Springs I checked Cora's blood sugar again and my epic failure became truly evident; her blood sugar was now over 300. I pulled out the blood ketone meter and it read a disturbing 2.5. Ketones are a measure of the acidity of the blood due to metabolizing fat instead of glucose. A 2.5 is not a good number; in fact the little paper included with the tester advises that you call the doctor right away if the meter reader over 1.5. The doctor's office was closed. I gave the correction the pump advised and prayed for the best.

Thinking perhaps the test was somehow wrong, after all we had never seem it register anything above a 1 before, I felt compelled to test again. But the due to the $10 a test strip price (and knowing it was probably right)I decided to use the cheaper urine test strips. Almost instantly the little square turned to an ominous dark purple. I set a timer for an hour, made poor Cora drink glass after glass of water to flush out the ketones. Then I sat anxiously by the window watching the giant snow flakes sticking to the cars cars and grass outside.

Joel returned from his dinner finding foray with a pizza and salad. Cora wisely opted out of the pizza, instead settling for salad and peanut butter crackers. When the timer sounded I was surprised and beyond relieved to find that both Cora's blood sugar and ketones were back with in reasonable levels. They did continue to be a little wonky-- up and down-- all night, and I didn't get much sleep, but at least I was no longer wondering where the nearest emergency room was.

By morning, the snow had piled up almost six inches and was still coming down. We funned out the tiny hotel pool and check out time came, but still the weather held us hostage. We hemmed and hawed over what to do next, finally deciding to drive the rental car the remaining 60 miles home.

Sunday morning (Easter morning) Joel drove up to Colorado Springs and flew the plane home while the kids and I went to Easter Church Service. Oh and the person who had the airplane reservation for Sunday morning, they canceled