Overcoming Vacation Difficulties This vacation presented many difficulties, but we didn't give up. We overcame them and still had a great time! They could not be ignored, but didn't deserve to become the main emphasis of this story. So they are given in detail only on this one page here. Click your browser "back" button to return to the story or click HERE to return to Seattle Trip Main Page. Jesse's Broken Tailbone: After Dave flew off for Minnesota, during the final phase of packing, Jesse lost his balance when Figment, our cat, stepped between his feet. To avoid hurting Figment, Jesse performed a 'controlled' fall. Unfortunately, the cat leapt directly into his fall path and to save him from becoming a throw rug, Jesse then twisted about and fell off to one side, directly onto his tailbone. With increasing pain, and the vacation hanging in the balance, Lyn took Jesse to the doctor. It was decided to skip the x-ray, since while it would reveal if his tailbone was broken or only badly bruised, the treatment is the same. Keep off of it, sit on pillows, and in either two weeks (bruised) or eight weeks (broken) the pain should subside. Throughout our trip, Jesse sat on a supply of inflatable kids pool doughnuts (popping one every day or two). He finally found that turning a chair around (back facing the table) gave his aching back relief. He was uncomfortable for the whole trip and, after we got home an x-ray revealed no break but a very deep bruise. Just  three short months later, he was pain free, and now it is all just a memory for him. As you read the story, know that every restaurant meal, every time he 'sat down to rest', every hour sitting in the back seat of the car, Jesse was uncomfortable across his lower back. But he didn't give up and still managed to have a good time on the trip. Everybody got Sick: We all felt ok during our first day in Seattle and the Tacoma Rainers baseball game. Jesse started sniffling first. By the time we hit Mt Shasta, Lyn had the sniffles and Jesse had a slight fever. Dave caught it the first night in San Francisco, and was feverish and exhausted each night of his conference (choosing to skip the boondoggle dinners and go right to bed). We ended up having soup for dinner each night, taking lots of NyQuil and sleeping it off. By the time we hit the Oregon coastline, we had all broke our fevers, kicked our sniffles and were finally feeling better. By Washington we all felt back to 'full strength'. We lost film: For people that travel as much as we do, this is one thing that just never happens. We regularly shoot 15, 20, or more rolls of film on our adventures, and regularly convince ourselves that we've lost one or two.  But after the developing, we have them all. This trip we lost two rolls of exposed film, and as part of the backpack fiasco, one roll in the camera at the time and all of the digital pictures Dave had been taking as an experiment (since we didn't have a backup). Oh well, we wouldn't let that get us down. Somebody Stole Our Backpacks: With the vacation winding down, we had  a busy day in Victoria, a confusing trek to catch a ferry to Vancouver, then a traffic jam all the way to our hotel. We finally settled in for dinner. It was Saturday night. When we returned to the car, we found the doors unlocked and the two backpacks missing from the backseat. In the day's confusion and exhaustion, nobody can remember if we remembered or forgot to lock the doors. We certainly forgot to tuck the backpacks into the trunk through the flip-down backseat like we had been doing consistently through the tip. Of course, there was a time that honest people would not consider an unlocked car door to mean "take what you want". We lost a mixed bag of items. Cash. Lyn's Wallet (with credit cards, driver's license, etc). The camera including the roll of film shot on the ferry. The tiny toy digital camera we were playing with while deciding if we should buy a nice one. Luckily, Dave's wallet and his smaller camera were with us inside the restaurant. Also, Lyn had taken time during the boring ferry ride to gather up all the rolls of shot film and move them to a bag in the trunk (that's why we have pictures on this web page). We lost Dave's cell phone, and our walkie-talkies. Dave's backpack had his laptop computer from work, and his pack of software CD's that he uses to help him travel (Rand McNally, Quicken, etc). Of course it was housekeys, and carkeys, medicines and day planners, and the backpacks themselves (which we had spent weeks to find). We lost our little notepads with the daily diaries we had been keeping with city names and people's names and things to look up on the web when we got home. None of these things, besides the cash, would have any value to the thief. However they took us dozens of HOURS of work to replace them. It turned out that the laptop (our biggest initial worry), was obsolete and past due to be upgraded. Its loss represented no issue to his employer and no value to the thief Within one hour, we had disabled the cell phone and all the credit cards. We inquired later but received no mention of any of them being used. We had a terrible experience with our bank (where losing one card required that we disable BOTH) but had a great experience with American Express where both cards had slightly different numbers so only Lyn's needed to be disabled. For the next three weeks we lived off cash from American Express (and our paper checkbook once we got home). When we explained the card dilemma to our bank, they just shrugged their shoulders and replaced the cards. We replaced the bank. But the silver linking to all of this was the wonderful treatment we received from our insurance claims center. We tell this story to anyone that asks (and have now put it on our web-site). We submitted an * Honest * list of what was lost. They seemed relieved. They quickly sent us replacements for the cameral and lens (including batteries), and readily accepted our list of items and receipts and cut us a check. Within four weeks, we were 'back to normal', so to speak, or as close to normal as could be expected. I strongly encourage you to visit the State-Farm representative nearest your own home when considering homeowners or personal property insurance. (Click Back Button to Return to Calling Page) Original Web Upload May 2001 Last Update: October 13, 2001