A Series of Unfortunate Events

Please note this entry has taken me three days to write! Our series of unfortunate events ended Tuesday afternoon.

You may have heard of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. It is a set of stories that chronicles unfortunate events in the lives of three orphans. The books were made into a movie that starred Jim Carrey. What you may not have heard of is the Risk version of A Series of Unfortunate Events. We would like to share.

Our story takes place over a very short, but tiring four days. It all started on Saturday evening when we decided to get a humidifier for James to help him sleep at night. We were staying at Grandma and Grandpa's house and they only one they had was a warm mist. We were looking for a cool mist humidifier. We drove down to the local drug store, only to learn that they had closed 15 mintues earlier, thus forcing us to drive across the river in search of a pharmacy that didn't lock up at 6:00 p.m. when they rolled the streets up. (This is an exaggeration. The pharmacy actually closed at 8:00pm.) We found one, bought the humidifier, and then went back to settle in for the night. In the middle of the night on Saturday. James, our cute and adorable son, was anything but cute and adorable when he woke up with a fever near 102 degrees. James' fever broke quickly, but he remained restless the rest of the night. Mommy did not get much sleep in trying to calm James.

Since James' fever broke quickly and did not return on Sunday, Mommy and Daddy left James with Grandma and Grandpa to attend a conference in the Cleveland area. Mommy was to present at the conference and Daddy was taking care of the driving so that Mommy could be well rested for her presentation.

As we exited the Ohio turnpike in Streetsboro, we followed our directions from Rand McNally and discovered the directions were incorrect. The directions told us to take I-480/SR 14 West. It also stated that this would be the ramp on the left. The ramp on the left was for SR 14 East and the ramp on the right was I-480/SR 14 West. We took the ramp on the right, deciding to follow the directions according to the street name. We were wrong. We should have followed the directions according to the ramp on the left (SR 14 East) and not by the street name. We drove four miles out of our way to the next exit before we could turn around.

When we arrived at our hotel late Sunday afternoon, the third unfortunate event occurred. We were given the wrong room. Mommy had requested a room with a king bed and we received a room with two twin beds. The hotel quickly apologized and reassigned us to a new room, so the unfortunate event was not tragic. But none the less it was unfortunate.

After settling in to the room, we decided to go for a drive and check out one of the lighthouses in Cleveland and then go to dinner. Since the conference was in a Cleveland suburb, we drove about 35-40 minutes to see the lighthouse. It was during our drive that the next unfortunate, though still not tragic, event occurred. We knew where the lighthouse was located because we had seen it about 10 years ago on our last trip to Cleveland, but we wanted to see if we could get closer than we did before, in order to get a better picture. To get closer, we decided to follow the directions provided by our Garmin GPS system. Why, I have no idea. The last time we went looking for lighthouses using the GPS system, it was a disaster. Read Our GPS post. The GPS continually told us to make turns where no turns existed and due to the complexity of some of the intersections, it told us to make turns that we should not have made. After driving around for a 1/2 hour, we finally got to where we thought we wanted to be. We were as close to the lighthouse as we could get (it is in the middle of Lake Erie with no access). Unfortunately, this still left us behind several fences and unable to get a good picture of the lighthouse. To top it off, we had forgotten our regular camera and had to try to take pictures on our cell phones. Those cameras are not very good because you can no zoom the lens very well. None of the pictures turned out.

With that, we decided to just go back and get something to eat. We decided on a place called The Tavern at Twin Lakes because it came highly recommended from the hotel staff. Boy were they wrong. The place was very nicely decorated with a good waterfront view, but the food was the worst meal we have had in a long time. Our appetizer was clam strips which were too heavily battered and thus overcooked. If you have ever had fried clam strips, you know they get rubbery when they are overcooked. A heavy batter can contribute to this because the clams have top cook longer to get the batter completely done. After the appetizer, we received our salads. Mine had a single cherry tomato on the salad. That tomato was smaller than the nail on my pinky finger and had more wrinkles than a raisin. For our entrees, I ordered the Fish Sandwich Du Jour. It was a fried Walleye. To begin with, the fish was so greasy, youy could blot the grease off with your napkin and the ring the napkin out. Additionally, the fish had NO FLAVOR. I know that Walleye is a very mild fish, but this was beyond mild. It tasted flat.

The rest of the evening was uneventful and the next morning we got up early so Lori could get to the conference early. As we pulled out of the hotel parking lot, we called Grandma and Grandpa and found out that James' fever had returned overnight, but had once again broken quickly. This time however, the fever kept coming back. We decided we would continue to the conference and check in at the morning break. We were on schedule to arrive 15 minutes early.

At this point another unfortunate event occurred as we missed our turn and drove seven miles out of the way before finding a church at which we could turn around. Lori arrived at the conference two minutes late instead of 15 mintues early.

While Lori was at the conference, I decided to check out some antique malls. I had found four the night before on the internet and set out to find them. The first two were in Hudson, Ohio and the second two were in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The furtherest was about a half hour away. When I arrived in Hudson, I discovered the first antique mall did not exist. The address was on Boston Mills Road, and it turned out to be a residential area. The mailboxes skipped over the address that was suppose to be the antique mall. The second antique mall in Hudson turned out to be closed on Mondays. Disappointed, I head for Cuyahoga Falls. When I got to Cuyahoga Falls, I discovered the third antique mall on my list was not accessible. It apparently sits in an area only accessible to pedestrians and I could not find any parking. I proceeded to the fourth and final antique mall. To my surprise, the antique mall no longer existed. The address given by the internet was now a game store. It appeared that the antique mall had been gone for quite some time.

By now I was upset for having wasted a perfectly good morning driving around to non-existent businesses. I decided to return to Streetsboro and go back to the hotel. Once back in Streetsboro, I stopped for lunch and as I finished my lunch, Lori called. James' fever has continued to come back even after giving him Children's Motrin and it hovered around 102 degrees taken with the thermometer under James' arm. This means the actual temperature is higher by about 2-3 degrees. Grandma had made an appointment with the pediatrician at the hospital an we decided we needed to go back to check on James ourselves. Not that Grandma and Grandpa can't handle it, but with the high fever and the news of a flu pandemic, we felt it was best to return.

I picked Lori up, swung by the hotel to pickup our stuff and check out, and we were back on the road for the 2 hour trip to Pittsburgh. As we are coming up to the toll booths, we decide to go by way of Pennsylvania State Route 60 because the tolls would be cheaper and our cash on hand was very tight. Toll booths don't take debit cards.

As we crossed into Pennsylvania we were horrified to find the toll booth sooner than expected. On our way out, we went by PA State Route 60 and only had to pay $0.65 for the toll. Our surprise was that if we went back by that same route, we had to pay two tolls - one of $3.75 and on of $0.65. As we approached the toll booth, Lori frantically counted out our money to make sure we had enough. I endedup pulling over onto the shoulder so that we could continue to count. We scrapped together enough money for the first toll by collecting all of our loose change, which included about 20 pennies. After getting through the first toll, we had five pennies left in our car, and no service plazas with an ATM to getmore money. We were forced to stay on the PA Turnpike instead of taking our intended route because we didn't have the money to get through the second toll. The first toll paid for the first three exits from the turnpike, so we took the third exit and found our way to the doctor's office. As we pulled into the parking garage at the hospital, we discovered the hospital had begun charging $2.00 to park. Before this, parking had always been free at the hospital. Now we would have to pay $2.00, when all we had was 5 pennies. All we really cared about was getting back to James and making sure he was ok. Lucky for us, Grandma had two extra dollars. The rest of the evening was uneventful save for James' restlessness. He throw up a couple of times because of all th muccus in his stomach.

Tuesday came and James was doing a little better. Mommy's presentation at the conference was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, so once again, we left James with Grandma and Grandpa and headed off on another two hour drive. I only went at the insistence of everyone to help Lori with driving.

We got back to the conference without incident, and had the best meal for lunch, save for a few rain drops. After dropping Lori off, I decided to head back to Hudson and visit the antique mall that was closed on Monday. After the 1/2 hour drive, I pull into the parking lot and see that the building is dark. I wondered if I had misread the hours the day before, but just as I was approaching the door, the owner stepped out. Apparently, the rain storm had knocked out the power and she didn't know when it would be back on. She told me I could try back in about an hour, but it was pitch black inside, so I wouldn't be able to see anything. I fully understood what she was saying, but she was kind of rude about it. I decided to head back towards Streetsboro and see what I could find to kill time there. Two blocks after I left the antique shop, the power came back on. I could tell because of the traffic light I was sitting at -- or should I say in. I was in the middle of the intersection when the power came back. Luckily, everyone had been treating it as a four-way stop like they were suppose to. I decided not to return to the antique shop because of the owner's rudeness and spent the remainder of the afternoon browsing a comic book and sports card shop, a Goodwill store and an independent thrift shop.

At 3:00 PM, I headed back to the conference to pick Lori up. The conference was to end at 4:00 PM and it was only a five minute drive, but I really had nothing else to do. When I arrived, I plugged my cell phone in to charge and opted to play a game of Tetrus on it. About and hour later, I thought I would move the car to the curb so that Lori would not get wet when she came out of the conference, only the car wouldn't start. That's right, I apparently ran down the battery charging my phone and playing Tetrus. Here we were two hours from home (grandma and grandpa's house) and unable to get back to our poor sick little baby. Luckily we have AAA, and for once, our luck seemed to change, because they arrived rather quickly. As we left town, I stopped by Auto Zone to have the battery replaced. Luck was with us again, though it left me confused, when the battery checked out perfectly good!

With that, we filled up the gas tank, ran through the drive thru at Sonic, and headed for home. I am happy to say that our series of unfortunate events ended with the car not starting.