Glycogen Storage Disease – StarchWars

Jacksonville to Gainesville

Posted on 14. May, 2009 by Jillian in Traveling

Okay, we’re in Jacksonville Florida. We’re in the home stretch, right? Almost. After yet another trip to the bathroom and an elevator ride later we’re at baggage claim. We find my dad’s suitcase and two of the car seats. After some searching we find the third car seat. Eventually it dawns on us that there aren’t any more bags coming out of the baggage carousel and we’ve been watching the same ones circle for the last five minutes. My Dad has to take a few calming breaths, and I jaunt over to the customer service desk. The lovely assistant tells me not to worry, she just set out a car seat under our last name. I walk over to where she’d pointed, and have to walk back to let her know that yes, that was one of our car seats, but we’re still missing one. She gawks at me like I’m insane and asks “You brought more than one?!?!?”.

After we found the baggage ticket, she said it would come in on the next plane and they’d send it along to our hotel in Gainesville. I filled out a few forms, and she let us borrow an airline seat until the other one could be returned. It was dripping with a bit of goo, and was infested with who knows how many germs, but after the day we had, I was very grateful for it.

A few more treks to and from the rental car station we were on our way in a nice clean mini van. My dad had me pull out the GPS while we were driving, but it took her a while to boot up and figure out we weren’t in Idaho any longer. We followed our mapquest directions until we had to make a choice between following “Maggie” the GPS or our map. “Maggie’s never steered us wrong before”. Famous last words. Several wrong turns and watching for exits that didn’t exist later we finally stopped at a fire station to ask for directions where the firefighters laughed and said, “Ya, don’t trust those GPS things out here.” Nice. We finally made it to Gainesville, and it was only about 20 minutes longer than it should have taken.

“Maggie” is now nicknamed “Naggie”.

We checked in to the Sleep Inn off of Archer. It’s only about a year old, and very nice for the price. Their hospital rate was only $71. Very clean, fairly comfy. They had a fridge and microwave in the room that came in handy.

The boys and my dad go to sleep, but of course I’ve forgotten my alarm clock, and the hotel one only has one alarm, so I set my cell phone. I wasn’t sure if it would work or not and so I ended up staying up all night so I wouldn’t miss a cornstarch and repacking for the hospital stay. By the time it was time for everyone to wake up I’d repacked, gotten ready for the day, eaten, installed our own car seat that the airline had sent us, and had everyone’s clothes laid out for them. I’d even been able to find out what foods were GSD friendly at the continental breakfast downstairs. Oh, Ya, and I’d remembered to do 10pm, 11pm, 2am, 5am, and 6am cornstarch.

End of Day 1…

Tags: Florida, Jacksonville