Part Four - My So-Called Vacation (by Reality Mom)
Reality Mom (a.k.a. author Corbin Lewars) shares memories of her "so-called vacation" in Hawaii. Click below to read:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
I wondered if she was teething and tried dosing her with baby Tylenol. When that didn’t help, I tried wearing her out during the day. When that didn’t help, I let her sleep as much as possible, thinking sleep breeds sleep. It didn’t and I started running out of ideas. I was also running out of patience. One night I crawled into bed at 6:00 p.m. because that is when Odo fell asleep and I had told myself I had to sleep when she slept, otherwise I wasn’t going to get any sleep. But who wants to go to bed at 6:00? Especially when on vacation. I gave up on another one of my half-baked ideas and began the downward spiral into insanity.
So far, I had managed to be somewhat civil and happy without any sleep. I think I was fueled by each and every one of my “new plans” to get Odo to sleep. Hope was keeping me pleasant. Plus, I was on vacation and I wanted to enjoy it. But then the rain came and washed away all hopes of salvaging the vacation and my sanity.
The southern part of Kauai claims that it only gets eight inches of rainfall a year. We had eighteen inches in one day. Living in Seattle made me think I knew something about rain, but I had never experienced rain like this. It was the mother of all rains. When we ran from our car to the condo, a mere twenty feet, it looked like we just stepped out of the shower. Sidewalks became huge puddles and when I stepped in these reservoirs, I found myself knee-deep in water. Hotel rooms flooded and bridges were washed out. This wasn’t your typical Hawaii sprinkle a little bit, but don’t bother leaving the beach because it will be over in a few minutes.
This was Mother Nature at her strongest and it made me feel very humble sitting on a very small piece of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
When I lived in Kauai and tourists said, “There isn’t much to do here is there?” I would scoff at them. “How can they say that?” I’d say to my friends, “You can go hiking, snorkeling, view gardens, go sailing, swimming, look for dolphins, ride your bike along the old cane roads…” I would rattle on. But that is because it never rained a lot when I lived in Kauai. All of the activities I mentioned and participated in happen outdoors.
I remembered that feeling when it started to rain on our vacation. I didn’t let it phase me and said, “It’s all right. We don’t have to go to the beach every day. Let’s go sightseeing.” We packed the kids up in the car and headed out to look at waterfalls. When we stepped out of the car to look at the waterfall, a gale force wind almost knocked us over. Within a minute we were dripping wet and I was afraid the wind was going to carry Little Dude away or at least knock him over the very steep cliff we were on. We didn’t even attempt to take Odo out of the car, fearing that her little body would be whisked away immediately. She sat in her car seat and looked at us dubiously. As if she was saying, “What in the world are you guys doing out there? Can’t you see it’s raining?”
To read more from Corbin Lewars, visit Reality Mom.
Read Part 5 tomorrow on the A Wild Ride Blog.
Photo © Adam Walter
