Vacation Fun

Two weeks had gone by since we first arrived in British Columbia. I was so glad it was over and we could get back to normalcy, whatever that was. But my husband had changed to a new wallet for the trip and forgot to put his driver's license in his new wallet. His mother realized (through her alcoholic fog) that we might not get back into the states without the proper ID. So we went to an attorney to swear out an affidavit regarding his legal citizenship, and paid fifty cents in American money for this service.

So I packed our luggage and was about to close the suitcases, when I realized that my little 17 month-old toddler needed a diaper change. Again. We didn't have disposable diapers those days, so I changed her, wrapped the soiled diaper in newspaper, put it in the suitcase and closed the lid. We would be home in just a few hours, so that wasn't a big deal.

We hopped on the bus with said luggage and made our way to Nanaimo where we had a rest stop. The bus driver said, "Be back on the bus by 1:30." So we had some tomato soup and crackers in the bus station which was also the train station. We didn't know that the bus was on daylight savings time, and the trains were on standard time. So we sat there impatiently for an hour and a half because we went by the clock on the wall.

Then we went out to get back on the bus. But it had left an hour before!

Oh, God! Now what do we do? We found a taxi and the driver said he could drive us to Victoria which was about 60 miles down the road. Luckily, we still had some American money in that nice new wallet, because this was going to cost us.

My little girl got car sick on the way and suddenly threw up the tomato soup all over the back seat of the cab. The taxi driver was the kindest person on this planet. He did not complain and he helped us search for our luggage when we arrived in Victoria. We found out that the bus driver had left our luggage at the bus station where we had that soup. So we left for home without luggage.

We managed to board our DC 4 after gaining a legal entrance back to our wonderful United States of America. We had an uneventful trip back to Minneapolis, Minnesota and my father was there waiting to bring us back to Northern Minnesota. Bless him.

We had to wait more than two weeks for our luggage to arrive by train. It came to Duluth. We lived 60 miles north, so we had to drive to the customs office in Duluth in order for

the luggage to clear customs. While there, the customs officer opened the suitcase in which I had placed the soiled diaper more than two weeks before, and I was frozen with fear as he went through our luggage looking for contraband or something. Instead, he found the diaper!! My mind goes blank at this point.