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.