My Vote is for East

This past weekend, the girls and I headed the Great Wolf Lodge on the other side of the state. The lodge houses an indoor water park, maintained at a balmy 80 degrees year round. The water park, in my opinion, has way too many surprises (water shoots, dumps, gurgles, and sprays at different times and places constantly) but I guess some people enjoy that sort of thing. I'm not a big one for surprises.

As soon as we started home, I realized that my plan of reversing the directions I had printed out in order to come home might be a flawed plan. I got hopelessly lost. At one point, I said to Halle (in an empty parking lot), "We're going EAST! I think we're supposed to be going west. I can't believe I did that!" Halle interjected, "I would like to say right now that my vote is for east." It turned out she was right, which must have been nice for her because about ten minutes away from the hotel, she had thrown up all over herself.

We pulled over to get her cleaned up. "Grover threw up, too," Halle told me. Grover is one of Halle's imaginary friends. He has a herd of cows that travel with him, as well as a couple of dinosaur buddies and his cat named Lotion. Fortunately for everyone, imaginary vomit does not smell or create much of a mess.

The whole adventure home (which took four hours instead of two) reminded me of one that I took two years ago with my Dad and sister-in-law Stephanie. Attending my brother's boot camp graduation, we stayed in a hotel with a toilet that sprayed water all over Steph, I threw up in a McDonald's drive-through, and we got so lost that we drove two hours out of our way before realizing our mistake. In addition to this, I was turning left and keeping an eye on some kids who were J-walking to the right of my car. I failed to notice a driver careening toward us, which Stephanie pointed out. Slamming my foot on the gas, we safely reached the turn lane. I stretched my hand over to my dad in the passenger seat. "High five for staying alive," I said. Dad slapped my hand and Stephanie recovered from her heart attack.

At any rate, I think I've decided to buy a GPS. It would give me a few less surprises.