This is my favorite picture. It also happens to sum up the weekend, which was supposed to be filled with sightseeing adventures. I had mapped out a route which would take us from our home to HWY 101, aka Pacific Coast Highway, aka the Scenic Route. This route began a series of unfortunate events. We left our home late. We hit major traffic jams. By the time we reached the so called scenic route, it was dark. At times, we were the lone car on a very dark and winding road in the middle of nowhere. I was enjoying the ride and playing DJ in the passenger seat.
Then there was a car in front of us. Because I'm no longer a "passenger seat driver," I didn't feel it necessary to inform husband that he was tailgating said car. At the same time I realized said car had a row of what looked like lights in the back window, I also noticed the last 3 letters of the license plate, which were WSP. Hmmm. WSP. Washington State Patrol? Honey, I think you better slow down that might could be a cop, I said as said cop pulled over to the right shoulder to turn on his lights. Oh shit. We pulled over. Said cop approached the vehicle and asked Husband what was going on and why was he tailgating. Husband apologized profusely and said we were somehow on this dark winding road and we were just trying to get to a highway. Cop accepted apology and informed Husband that he was indeed driving on a highway. No ticket was issued and we were on our way.
We finally make it to the city of our destination. That is when I first noticed the above sign. W.W.A.S. (what would Arthur say???) Holy shit! We are staying in a real tsunami zone! Anyway, I was caught up in that and not really paying attention to the written directions. Husband was listening to the navigation system and let it take us to our hotel. Or so we thought. We ended up at a hotel with a similar name to our real hotel. This place was not on the ocean and seemed like the Bates Motel. It was empty. We were scared. We entered the lobby and informed the woman behind the desk that we had a reservation. She looked at a blank piece of paper and informed us that she had no reservations. That's when we realized with relief that we were in the wrong place. We got the correct directions and went to the correct hotel.
Everything was fine.
The next morning we got up and it was raining. We were bummed but decided to eat breakfast at a restaurant in town then do our sightseeing anyway. The restaurant only had 1 waiter working. This caused breakfast to take almost 2 hours. However, when we left the restaurant the rain had stopped! We got in the car and drove to Ecola State Park. (I kept calling it either Ebola or E-coli, but it was an amazingly beautiful place). We wandered around the park which is right on the Pacific Ocean and took many pictures.
It started to rain again so we got in the car and decided to drive to Cannon Beach to see the famous Haystack Rock which is the 3rd largest free standing rock in the world (see above pic and thank blogger for not allowing me to put it here). We were on Cannon Beach for about 5 minutes when I began sweating profusely. It was about 43 degrees and I was sweating like no one's business. I didn't know what the hell was going on. Then a very bad pain began in the center of my abdomen. I thought I was going to pass out. I told Husband we had to get off the beach because something was really wrong. At this point I thought I had food poisoning. We made it to a public restroom where I sat on the floor waiting to be very sick. It never happened. I started to think there was something very wrong like something had burst like appendix or gall bladder. I got up off the floor and went out to Husband and told him to go get the car, I needed to go to the hospital. He picked me up and I sat in the car with the window down, still sweating to death.
By the time we got to the hospital I was feeling better. The pain was almost gone. Not knowing what had happened I decided to get admitted to the ER. My stay lasted more than 5 hours. I had every test under the sun including EKG, abdominal X-rays, blood tests (3), urine test & abdominal ultrasound. The doctor could find nothing at all wrong with me. The most baffling thing was that the first blood test showed my white cell count to be 22 when normal is 10. My face also broke out in hives. With a white cell count that high, the doctor said he could not release me. I definitely panicked. He said he would wait 2 hours and do another blood test and then decide what to do. I was feeling fine and just wanted out of there. Luckily the next test showed the level had dropped to 17. The ultrasound showed some tiny stones in my gall bladder but not big enough to do anything, he thought. He agreed to let me leave but wanted me to come back in the morning for another blood test, which I did and the white cell level was down to 12. He recommended I see I specialist when I got home and gave me all the records including a CD of the ultrasound.
I believe I had an allergic reaction. I've had that abdominal pain (just never that bad) every so often for about 7 years now. In fact, years ago I did see a specialist who did many tests and also could find nothing. I diagnosed myself with a food allergy. It's a tricky allergy though. I believe I'm allergic to some kind of commercial cooking oil because it never, ever happens at home. At first I thought it was in deep fried foods, so I no longer eat deep fried anything. What caused it this time? I have no idea because I ate only eggs and pancakes. Nothing was deep fried. It is very frustrating.
Once released from the ER, we went on to continue our trip and had a good time. It would have been better, but it rained on and off the whole rest of the time. When we left to head home it was raining. When we got home, it was sunny. Of all places it was sunny here. Oh, the irony.
