Bailey outside the visitors center on our way down to Phoenix.
Sandy's son, Nathan, was having his new baby boy blessed on Easter Sunday and their family decided they would take that opportunity to go for their vacation. Kathy decided she wanted to go to Arizona and they planned to go as well. My parents had been to Sierra Vista with me to go see Tiffany, so they had been to Arizona, but figured they would go to Phoenix for the blessing, too.
I had debated back and forth in my mind about whether we could go or not, depending on finances and how Scott would do on a long car ride. I decided it would be cool to go to Phoenix and spend Easter with Tiffany and her family. Tiffany called me when she found out we were going to come down and asked if we could bring Bailey with us to spend a few days with them. Bailey lives with her mom in Salt Lake and doesn't get to spend much time with Brad, her father, so I was thrilled to have her come with us..... heck, she was better behaved than Scott!
As we were going to leave Thursday morning, March 20th, very early in the morning, we spent most of Wednesday, or should I say ... I spent "All" day getting things done and ready to go. We went to Circuit City to get the new laptop I promised Scott, went and got an oil and filter change for the car, filled up in gas, had lunch, got some goodies to eat on the way, went to North Salt Lake to get Bailey, and then I packed the trunk while it was still light out side.
I had the worse time convincing Scott there were a lot of things he had put to the side to take that we would not need for just a few days! He wanted to take his large tool box that contained "junk" and 2 computer power cords. We argued over that one as we have a 2 door Honda Civic Coup and not much room! I finally told him I put the things from the tool box into a soft computer bag that was thin and would fit.
It was bad enough that he had a large carry case with about a dozen books and the same in DVDs that I had to pack for him. He was in quite the mood, and then did not go to bed at all that night and was still wide awake when we were leaving.
I didn't get much sleep as I was so frustrated with all the stuff he insisted that we bring. We got up about 4 a.m. and got the last few things, snacks, cooler and drinks, and blankets and pillows in the car, and then finally ourselves. Scott wanted to be in the back seat and Bailey sat up front with me. After stopping at Burget King to grab some breakfast on the way we got on the road.
It was still pretty dark, which brought us to our next frustration....Scott plugged his new laptop into a travel power box that had the cord go between Bailey and I and plug into the cigarette lighter, which was a pain... Next, since it was still dark, Scott kept turning the dam dome light on and off every few minutes for an hour. I kept telling him to leave it off as it caused too much of a glare and made it hard to see the road. I was hoping he would be so tired and that the car would lull him to sleep... No such luck!
We caught up with my family in Kanab, Utah and had breakfast with them at Mc Donalds. I checked Scott's sugar and gave him a shot as his sugar was up quite a bit, and then again we all piled into the car and had a big caravan down to Phoenix.
We stopped at the Glen Canyon dam for a bathroom break for Scott and for Kimmie to change her babies. We waited outside the visitors center for Scott to come out, and when he finally did, he wanted to take the tour of the Dam. I was so tired and frustrated with him by this time that I was losing my patience. I told him the family was wanting to get back on the road so that we could beat the rush hour traffic going through Phoenix. We would take the tour on our way back home. He was mad and wanted to take the tour now. I told him to either get in the damn car, or I would leave him there and he could tour the damn Dam all he wanted and find his own damn way back to Orem! I feel bad now that I wasn't too nice... it's what happens with lack of sleep! I walked away and a few minutes later he followed me to the car. I held the door open for him and he came up and said to me, "You are so damn insensitive!" I looked at him and then realized he had wet his pants. I think he was a little confused and couldn't relate that he needed to go back and change his pants. Then I really felt bad. I asked him, "Do you mean you need to change your pants? Is that why you want to go back in?" and he snapped .... "Well, what the hell do think?" like I was supposed to know earlier. I opened the trunk and realized there was no way to get to his suitcase without pulling everything that he insisted on taking out and repacking. So Scott just climbed back into the car.
He dried pretty quickly, thank heavens, but he kept drinking a lot of water and soda all the way down so we had to stop frequently. The next major frustration was when we stopped in Flagstaff for gas, and grab lunch. I tried to give Scott a little freedom and let him feel like he was in control of some things, and gave him some money to buy soda or snacks with. He went through it pretty quick, but the worst was while looking to get onto the right freeway entrance from Flagstaff to Phoenix, we realized he had bought 2 of those 5 hour energy drinks and drank both of them at once. And I had been hoping against all odds and hope that he would finally be tired enough to sleep the rest of the way there!
By the time we reached the outskirts of Phoenix we had indeed hit rush hour traffic, and worse was that Sandy was leading all of us since Nathan kept calling her and giving her better directions that changed by the minute! So we had 3 cars trying to follow Sandy while she cut across 4 lanes to the HOV lane, only to try and cross back again 15 minutes later to take the exit! That was a trip just itself! And getting frustrated more by the second as Scott is complaining that we aren't "there yet" and that this was "piss poor planning" since it took so long, I didn't realize that I had gotten off at the wrong exit, as I was still following Sandy, instead of following my parents to the exit we were supposed to get off at. Sandy and her family staid at a different Hotel than Mom and Dad, Kathy and her family and us. So here I am trying now to find our Hotel which luckily only took us a few minutes to find.
We got everything into our room, and thankfully, no ~ very thankfully! ~ it was a real nice room with 2 Queen beds. We relaxed for a few moments and then went down stairs to have dinner at the Hotel restaurant. It was a pretty good restaurant and prices not too bad. We ordered dinner and then I went to look out the window to see what the pool looked like, when Scott took my change purse and took all the money out. When I got back, he asked me "Do you want some ones?" I told him no and Aunt Dorothy told me, "Yes you do, he took your money out of your change purse." I had to wrestle him to get it back and since I promised him I would give him money, I gave him $60.00.
After a nice dinner, Scott wanted to sit out by the pool and relax while we waited for Tiffany to call us so she could come get Bailey and take her to her house. Bailey and I went to our room and put the rest of Scott's sandwich in the room fridge and went back down to meet Scott at the pool. When we got down there, he wasn't there. That was the last straw for me that day, I was sooo tired and cranky I wanted to clobber him! We looked around the pool, wondering where he could have gone, and panicking at the same time. Just as we were heading to the door to go back in, out comes Scott, holding a plastic pint size cup of Beer no less!
I was so shocked I asked him what the hell he was doing! He simply looked at me and said, "I am having my cup of Beer! I always have a Beer after dinner." "Since when? You haven't had an alcoholic drink in over 30 years!" I told him. He told me.... "You don't know what you are talking about... you are hallicinating!" So we went to sit by the pool, with Bailey sitting between us so that I didn't reach over and stangle him. By the time he had finished his drink, and I had also found out that he gave the guy at the bar a $20 for a $2 drink, and not gotten his change back, he was glazed over. I took him up to our room and before getting the first shoe off, he had fallen over on the bed and was out. I got his shoes off and got him on the bed all the way so he didn't fall off, and covered him up. I then took the remainder of the money out of his wallet, and then looked for, and found the old medicine that he had been taking, that he no longer should be taken, but found in the closet. No wonder he was really off! I took the pills and dumped them down the toilet and flushed them.
He was so out of it, that when Bailey took the bottom corner of the mattress and really shook it, yelling "Earthquake" that he did not budge! While he slept I had to keep checking his sugar and gave him 3 insulin shots to get his sugar down. I went down the hall to see mom and dad, and they were chuckling that Dorothy had seen him at the bar. I told them I was ready to kill him, and they just told me to be thankful he was finally sleeping and take advantage of the opportunity! I started laughing and told them that maybe I would give him a Beer before getting into the car when we go home. The rest of the night did go well, as I was able to relax once Tiffany came and got Bailey, and left after a little bit, and Scott was still sleeping.
The next day Scott was so tired, that he staid at the hotel and slept and I went to the Zoo with mom, dad, and Aunt Dorothy, and was at the moment ..... "Scott Free!" Later that night we all met at the Mesa Temple and watched the Easter pageant, which was pretty awesome.
Scott enjoying his pizza while watching Pyper and Jordan run around.
