40/20 5+ State Tour - Day 6, Las Vegas, an accident & on to Anaheim

[Guest]

Pre-Trip
Day 1 - Travel to NYC
Day 2 - NYC & Liberty
Day 3 - NYC, shopping, High Line & ESB
Day 4 - NYC, Central Park & travel to Vegas
Day 5 - Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, Bellagio, Venetian

Day 6 – Tuesday 5th August
Up at a reasonable 8-ish we shower & pack & make a plan for the day:
Check out
Go to NYNY for breakfast & do the roller coaster
Drive to Joshua Tree National Park (ds is called Joshua)
On to Anaheim
…..
As with the best laid plans of mice & men, this is not going to be how our day works out…

Leaving the hotel room dh discovers that the long trek back to the subway station in NY on day 4 (thanks maintenance work) has damaged the bottom of our “outside” suitcase & there is a piece of fairly heavy duty wire sticking out of the bottom of it meaning it can no longer be rolled, it’s heavy to carry but not impossible.

We go down & visit the Rock Shop which is disappointing, not great merch but we get some patches & ds buys lightning flashes to go on his trainers, their pins are pretty pants – I like getting them but only if they’re locally relevant (ie I got one with Liberty on in New York). Maybe we’ll get to the proper shop on the Strip? (another thing that’s not going to happen!)

We decide that dh will check out while the kids & I go to pack the car. We are nearly at the car when I swap hands for the suitcase & disaster strikes, remember that piece of wire? It slashes open the inside of my left foot & blood is literally pouring out. I dump the bags & hop to the car in order to get my foot up & whack a load of tissues on it for compression. DD goes very quiet & gets in the car, ds, bless his heart, gets all the bags to the car (carefully loading what we from hereon in refer to as "the suitcase of doom" in, wire side first) & dh arrives looking very confused &, quickly, aghast. It is a very deep cut & I am definitely going to need stitches. Call the insurance company who say “go anywhere & we’ll re-imburse you” (famous last words, we later find) & we discover there’s a medical centre a block away. In the meantime, remember those expensive plasters? Grab a load of those & bodge my foot back together…they were a good investment after all!

Off we go, quiet & subdued but I’m not in any pain (apart from the numbness ‘cos I’ve had my foot up so long!). DD quietly asks if we’ll have to go home so we quickly assure her that we won’t & although I might have some limitations of what I can do it won’t affect her holiday really (hopefully!). Check in & fill in lots of paperwork requiring me to walk backwards & forwards to the desk causing the foot to open up again & start gushing so I’m grateful when it’s done & I can sit with it up & apply more of those plasters (!) while we wait.

Not too long before I’m called back & I hop in. The nurse offers a wheelchair but I pooh-pooh this suggestion: I’m tough & I don’t like a fuss…! She asks another heap of questions then looks at the offending foot…& goes to get a wheelchair anyway! Back I go to a treatment room & long story short: an hour, a tetanus shot, 5 stitches & $530 later I emerge bandaged up with a prescription for antibitotics, instructions about changing the dressing, conflicting advice about when to get the stitches out & exhortations not to get it wet: seizing the day yesterday was the right thing to do & I am so glad I didn’t stay in the room!

I now have the admiration of my family, particularly dd, when I tell them I’m so badass I even watched the doc stitch me up! I insist that we go to NYNY as planned even though we are several hours behind schedule. Mum calls just as we exit the medical centre & the kids are silently amazed at how I manage to tell her the absolute truth, just not ALL of the truth, no way am I telling her about my foot, she is such a worrier & she needs to concentrate on getting better.

Food first at NYNY, the boys have NY hot dogs (yes I know we only just left there!) while the girls have crepes, mine was lemon curd & raspberry & absolutely delicious. Off to the roller coaster (of course, because what else would YOU do after ripping your foot open, getting stitches & filling your belly?!) Roller coaster achieved (great fun!), I stick a dollar in a slot machine so that at least we’ve gambled in Vegas, we’ve done little enough else traditional.


Time to leave, but Vegas hasn’t quite finished with us: dh realises he’s left our camera battery charging unit in our hotel room so back we go to HRH with our fingers crossed (I’m not happy about being back in that car park!), after a long wait, success! NOW can we leave Vegas?!

Sadly, we realise that all these delays have eaten the time that we could have used to detour to Joshua Tree. It was only ever a “maybe” but I feel awful that I have “caused” us to miss it despite everyone telling me that it was an accident. We comfort ourselves with seeing lots of Joshua Trees along the edge of the Mojave Desert in temperatures exceeding 100.

We stop in Victorville at about 6pm for a comfort stop. Why here? It’s the first place we see a Sonic sign! I’m a member of a US message board where people regularly rave about the ice at Sonic & I have always wanted to find out what all the fuss is about. Their range of soft drinks is endless & we all go for slushes (lemonberry, atomic lemon, watermelon & cherry), all are yummy! It is right next to a Walmart so we go to get my prescription & wander/limp while they’re preparing it, shopping for duct tape (for the suitcase, although we joke it probably would have worked for my foot!) & treating me to peanut butter oreos (was desperate to try these…omg! Awesome!) Get the antibiotics & some generic Tylenol & back on our way by 7pm.

Make it to our hotel in Anaheim about 8pm & check in ok. We are about to head to Downtown Disney at about half past when my phone rings & I see it is my Dad. Immediately I do the math & realise it’s 430am at home & I am shaking when I answer, certain that my day is about to get much worse & Mum is either really sick (the only time they’d tell me) or worse…imagine my relief when he asks for the house insurance information as it’s “only” a water leak that’s worrying him! (This stops shortly afterwards & although it needs looking into he ends up not contacting them & leaving it for us to sort out when we get home). In all honesty at this point I’ve had enough for one day but we’re hungry so off we go to DTD anyway, park easily & get the tram in. I really am not up to walking far by now, funnily enough, so we stop at the first place we come to “Napoli’s” & order a couple of pizzas. Get the tram back, drive the mile back to our hotel & so to bed.

[Guest]

What a day! Off to read the other days :-)

[BevS97]

Oh boy, what a nightmare. I hope your foot doesn't ruin your holiday.

[abiknox]

Gosh, it was tiresome just reading that day! Hopefully things improve for you again. Glad you had your one swim in the pool!

[CrispyA]

Ouch! Hope the foot heals up quickly.

[lovedisney89]

Awww how unlucky about your foot! Glad you were determined not to let it ruin your holiday though. Thanks for sharing

[hross42877]

What a day! Good on you for continuing!