Dumpy Grace goes on vacation (Or how I learned to love writing horror)

Finally, the long awaited day arrived and we were off to Florida. We invited our two daughters along for the trip. Airmile points are a wonderful thing!

We decided to fly out of Buffalo instead of Toronto and the flight left at 7am so we booked a hotel for the night. Hoping to save money we 'bunked' with the girls in a room with only two double beds. With a husband who makes a habit of chainsaw level snoring that proved a bad decision all around.

Nevertheless, it had been a long day and by 11pm the lights were out and we all tried to make the best of it. By 11:15 the minor medical issue that I had been trying to ignore for the past 2 hours started to hammer away at my last nerve. Ouch...ignore...ooowwww....ignore....YIKES....ignore....Ah Jeeeezzzz.....

After waking the ever patient snoring man, we negotiated the dark streets of Tonawanda, NY searching for the local hospital. I've secretly always wanted to see Tonawanda since growing up with Eyewitness News on Channel 7 out of Buffalo. Every night Irv Weinstein would announce the latest devastating fire, almost always in Tonawanda. I expected to see a charred wasteland. Instead, we found a perfectly nice hospital and with little fanfare were ushered almost immediately into an ER bed not by a triage nurse but a security guard wearing a sidearm.

 Alrighty then.

A half hour later and we were out of there, prescription in hand. I can't imagine how long we'd have had to wait at a big city Canadian hospital at that time of night. 4 hours? 6 hours? 8? 

I'm not complaining. The one thing we wouldn't have to do in Canada is pay out of our pocket which is what we had to do in Buffalo.  Despite the fee, I was immensely grateful and if we took another hour and a half driving 10 miles to the nearest all night Walgreens then having to endure a punch drunk pharmacist who kept calling us Wacky Canadians - then so be it! It was worth it to know that I would not be trapped on the plane in a few hours forced to endure mind numbing agony.

By 2am we made it back to the hotel and fell into bed. The snoring started almost immediately but what could I do? The patient man had driven the streets of Tonawanda with me for the past several hours, his blood-red eyes literally hanging from the sockets.

I turned on my side and tried to sleep with very little success. At 4am I gave it up and went down to the breakfast area where hysterical early morning show anchors shared the latest celebrity gossip.

Not to be outdone, the bleery-eyed front desk clerk pumped up the volume on a cartoon show she was watching behind the counter.

BRUTAL!!


With an early morning flight to catch the rest of the crew woke at 5:45 am and before long had joined me at the breakfast bar. A hurried piece of toast and we all piled into the shuttle that would take us to the Buffalo International Airport.

I had painted my toenails a particularly noxious colour of Barbie pink and as we exited the shuttle my oldest daughter caught sight of them for first time. Haha! She pointed and laughed and promptly fell flat on her face, twisting her ankle. It almost immediately began to swell. Thoughts of a return visit to the ER flashed through my head.

Luckily, after several tense minutes she felt well enough to sit propped in a wheelchair.

The good news? We were able to bypass the long security line, her wheelchair having to pass through a much shorter special needs access line.

And she boarded first along with her nurse sister, saving us a couple of seats in the fully packed plane.

Bonus.



We arrived at Orlando airport after a short and pleasant flight then picked out a nice SUV from the rental car line-up. Used to being crammed into sub-compact cars the girls were thrilled with the extra leg room

Good thing, too, because the ever patient snoring man had insisted on bringing his GPS. Although the closest airport is Fort Lauderdale we had flown into Orlando because on the way back the girls wanted to visit Harry Potter World at Universal Studios. The resultant 2.5 hour drive would be well worth it the girls declared and the patient man didn't mind if it meant he got to use his GPS.

The minute the GPS directed us north from Orlando instead of south I sensed a problem. "Trust me," said the patient man, "this baby has never let me down." Without a good old fashioned paper map on hand to double check the route I sat back and kept my mouth shut.

2.5 hours later, when we should have been rolling into our resort we started seeing signs for Orlando again.

"It's probably just another route up to Orlando," declared the nervous but still patient man.

"Oh, ya?" said the impatient and rapidly overheating me, "How come it says the next 4 exits lead to Orlando?"

"There must be four highways back up there!" cried the shocked man.

Fishing out a thumbnail map of Florida on the back of the rental car agreement I pointed out that the GPS had taken us north to Daytona Beach then back down again to Orlando. We were starting from scratch.

"Stupid GPS!" shouted the angry man.

I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. I really, really wanted to way "I told you so..." In the end, I sealed my lips and hummed a few bars of Camptown Races. For some reason that always soothes me.

Six hours after arriving in Orlando we finally made it to our lovely resort. We inherited a one week time share and enjoy the quiet setting on the beach. The efficiency apartments are older but well kept. At the last minute we sprung for a second unit so the girls didn't have to sleep on a pull out couch in our unit. It seemed fitting that the unit they were given had been recently renovated including a brand new DVD player, soaker tub and stainless appliances.  Ours retained its old world, 1960's charm.

Still, we were in Florida and the sun was shining! The temperature was nearing 30 degrees Celsius and the sound of the waves on the shore was hypnotic. A quick slather of sunscreen and off we went for a a walk on the beach.

 Turned out that slap dash of sunscreen wasn't quite enough...

















And when we got back to the room I checked my email only to find out that our dog, which my sister had graciously agreed to look after was not feeling all that well. My sister is a fastidious housekeeper and while she had expected the shedding hair she had not bargained for the rest of it.

Herein ends the tale of my first day of vacation.

I'll keep you posted if it gets any more interesting.