Posts for category ‘Vacations’

The beginning of last week end was a blast!

On Thursday Max and I went camping in the White Mountains. This started out as an experiment. Except for Cub Scout overnights my son and I have never gone away by ourselves. I wanted to see how we would handle any meltdown he might have in front of other people. He was great; nothing happened.

Friday we took the Cog Railway up Mount Washington. Our original plan was to just drive up, do the train, and then come home. We both decided that a 5 hour round trip drive would be just too much so we added the camping. Max and I had a lot of fun “riding the rails” and being on top of the mountain.

But then we came home. We walked in the door on Saturday morning…and all hell broke loose. The fun and good times were completely forgotten. Max snapped. Nothing we did was right. He was screaming and yelling. Several times he threatened to hit us.

He spent more time getting time outs and consequences for the rest of the weekend. We noticed that he was unhappy as well.

What prompted all of these?

• Maybe he doesn’t like end of the fun times.

• Or perhaps it is similar to the way a lot of kids with disorders go through school life. That is, they are able to keep things together during the day but once they get home they are in a safe environment where they can lose control.

• My wife believes that this is the same as when we go away whether for one day or several. Max is able to keep in control during the trip but then he needs that release time once he gets home.

But then Max and Dad are tired once we get home. For whatever reason we tend to be grumpy too. I know that my son reacts badly to my bad humor.

• Our doctor is convinced it is due to the food Max eats. He won’t touch any of the meals his Mom creates. It is not because they are terrible; they are in fact quite good. As a result he tends to eat both junk and fast foods on a regular basis which isn’t terribly healthy.

It could be any or all of these reasons. Or it could be something else.

But I think that whatever it is Max’s reactions are not the result of conscious thought. I believe that he is having such a good time he doesn’t realize that he is winding tighter and tighter like a spring. When he finds a safe place like home the catch on the spring lets lose and he loses control

Once that happens he doesn’t know how to stop his explosions. And the longer they go on the more escalated he gets.

One thing I do know is that he is very unhappy while this is going on. When the storm subsides he is very apologetic. He has also been known to cry, like this weekend…which is very rare for him. He thinks that he should never show tears.

By Sunday evening things were back to normal. Of course, it was bedtime and he was asleep almost immediately. Both my wife and I slept through several programs on the couch.

So it turned out to be an exciting weekend. The first part had a lot of ups. The second half was very down. We are hoping that the tools that his counselors are teaching him and changes in his diet will help level things off so that we can go away more often.

In the end we want him to be a happier kid.

Last Thursday my son and I went camping at Mount Washington in New Hampshire. Our initial goal was just to ride the Cog Railway up to it but since it is a 5 hour drive round trip we decided to break it up. That is, we would drive up on Thursday. Spend the night at a camp ground and then do the train on Friday. After that we would go home.

Mount Washington is the tallest mountain in the Northeastern part of the United States. It is over 6200 feet high and is known for its dangerous and very changeable weather. But today we got some surprising news: at the top it was 63 degrees and very little wind. This meant we would be able to leave the winter coats in the car.

I had heard for years how exciting the train ride was up the mountain. One friend told me that it was worth any price…but take a lot of pictures.

When Max and I arrived we were presented with something out of the past. This small train was built in the mid 1860s and sits outside a large old train station. There are actually 10 of them which consist of a passenger car that holds about 60 people and a small engine that pushes it up the slope.

To give you an idea what it looks like I found this clip on YouTube:

When we first arrived Max and I had to check in. This meant converting the tickets we got online into real ones. Then we had to wait. The train hadn’t arrived back down the mountain from its first trip so we wandered around taking pictures. This one is of the first train used on the line:

This picture came from the Cog Railway website. Max’s photos have not been developed yet.

It wasn’t long before we heard an “ALL ABOARD” bellowed from the train conductor. The passengers lined up ready to hand in their tickets. I had made sure that Max and I were first because I knew he’d love the seats just inside the door. These would give a perfect view of the tracks in front of us as we chugged up the side of the mountain.

As we settled in the conductor informed us we were sitting in one of the new biodiesel trains. They still have one that is powered by coal and that runs once a day at 9 am. I must say this was our only disappointment because we had been looking forward to that one. I also noticed that the whistles are different. The newer ones sound like a regular train whistle.

I won’t go into any detail about the ride up. The nice thing was that the conductor also acted as our tour guide pointing out notable objects along the way. It took an hour and we not only passed many hikers climbing along the tracks but also a lot of incredible sights. Max enthusiastically took pictures on the way to the top. At the peak I couldn’t resist photographing him standing next to the summit marker.

But of course once there the first thing he found was the requisite gift shop. This is where his buying addiction kicked in. He was more interested in getting the moose back scratcher, the Mount Washington Park Ranger badge, and the “this bike climbed Mount Washington” bumper sticker than seeing the sights.

This was totally different from when we hiked up Mount Monadnock last fall. Then he couldn’t get enough of climbing the rocks and pointing out the sights to his struggling old man.

We spent an hour on top of the mountain before it was time to board the train again and head below. On the way down the conductor became the brakeman. It was now his job to spin the massive wheels at the front of the passenger car to make sure we didn’t descent too quickly. Like on the way up it took an hour to get back to the train’s base station.

This is another clip from YouTube showing the return trip:

As I mentioned earlier it is never a complete trip unless Max is begging to buy stuff. But I’ll tell you one thing, on the way down that scratcher did a great job on my back and on his. But like everything else he buys my son forgot about his new prizes immediately after returning to our home in Massachusetts.

The big plus about our trip is that except for the buying Max’s disorders did not present themselves very much. This was a good thing. I had been worried that this could be a make or break event. That is, if he wasn’t able to remain calm and enjoy the time we had we just might not be able to do it again.

But it was successful and we are now planning our next trips for the summer.

I can’t wait!

Recently I was talking to my 9 year old, Max. It is summer now and I mentioned that we hadn’t started planning what we will be doing. I asked him what he would like. He said,

“I want to go camping.”

“Great idea. Where do you want to camp?”

“At Mount Washington.”

“I like that. And what do you want to do when we are there?”

“Take the cog railway to the top of the mountain.”

“You know, I think that is a great plan. Why don’t we do it.”

“When?”

“We will leave on Thursday.” Today was Sunday.

Max was excited; he couldn’t wait.

I didn’t tell him I had already planned the trip to Mount Washington in Northern New Hampshire on Thursday. We would camp out overnight and take the train up the mountain on Friday morning. I had already bought the train tickets and scheduled the campsite. Except for packing we were all set to go.

Isn’t it nice we think alike?

Because Max is still in school and has afternoon programs it was my job to pack and get ready. I cleaned and packed the tent and sleeping bags, food, water, and clothes. But then of course there were other things that Max wanted to take. By the time the car was loaded it looked like we were going for a week instead of one night.

And then there were his meds. I was a little worried about how I was going to keep track of all of them. My wife came up with a great idea. She bought a box of those small yellow envelopes. She then loaded them up with the correct dosages. After that she labeled them with their days and times. Perfect.

I suppose it would have been easy if Max’s meds were all the same each time of day but they are set up so that he gets different ones at different times. Not only that some of them have to be cut in half. The envelopes worked great!

Since we were leaving on Thursday he ended up missing two days of school. Generally this would be a problem because he loves going but this was a special case. He was genuinely excited about going north.

The drive took 3 hours so we were both ready to relax when we got there. As we went to check in at the camp I noticed Max was getting worried. I asked him what the problem was and he pointed to several signs posted around the door. We were in bear country. These were warnings to watch out for them.

I spoke to the camp owner and he assured me that he hadn’t seen a bear come through in two years. That was great but a short time later Max was talking to his kids. They informed him that they saw one every day during the school year. They would pass it on the bus as they passed through the next town over. Apparently the residents were feeding it. It seemed like they were trying to make it a pet. But if they weren’t careful they would be in for a rude awakening. Bears don’t make good pets.

We spent the afternoon swimming in the pool and Max made friends. One little girl he met was disappointed. It seems that her older sister had been the one to encounter the camp bear two years before. She wanted to see one too but it hadn’t happened yet. Her family only had two days left at their campsite.

Dinner was fun; not really. I had set up the grill to cook hot dogs and beans but it took over an hour just to get the coals hot enough. I always use a chimney to get things going since I don’t use lighter fluid. It generally takes 20 minutes before the food goes on. That night it took over an hour to get a half way decent fire.

While I was waiting to cook Max kept bringing new friends over to see what was happening so they got to see the non-cook at work.

After dinner and some ice cream that we got at the camp store Max was ready for bed. He was asleep by 8:00. Not having anything else to do I turned in and was asleep by 8:30. I ended up waking at midnight and just lay there thinking about bears. I kept imagining them snuffling around the tent.

In the meantime my son was restless. He kept sitting up, looking around, and then lying down. Several times he would call me; convinced I was gone. I would calmly tell him I was still there sleeping beside him.

In the morning we struggled awake and ate breakfast. After that we headed out to the Mt Washington Cog Railway to ride up the mountain. This was sort of a compromise. We really wanted to ride the train even though we had the options of driving up or climbing. I had been told it was too scary by car and climbing could take a very long time.

The drive from the campsite to the mountain is gorgeous. We were in the middle of the Presidential Range which is in the northern most part of the White Mountains. Every where you look there is a mountain or a steep hill covered in greenery.

The one draw back is that there is not alot of cell phone service. We learned that if you are driving and you find a connection pull over quickly. It can be lost just as quickly as it was found. When we discovered one we called Mom to tell her what was going on.

We had to let her know that plans had changed. Originally after the train ride we were going to head home but we decided to stay one more night. She liked this idea since it meant more time for her to relax. And luckily she had packed extra meds just in case.

After that we continued on the road to the train. When I planned the trip I made sure that our stops weren’t too complicated. The camp was 10 miles from the highway on a smaller road and the train was another 10 miles off the same road. So everything was easy.

After the train it was more swimming and playing at the camp. I tried to cook again that night but I couldn’t get the coals working at all so Max and I decided to go out for dinner. We found a nice family restaurant, ate, and then returned to camp for another ice cream. I was able to keep my son up a little later that night but we were both asleep by 9.

It was another restless night for both of us. It didn’t help that a family with two large dogs arrived in the evening to start their vacation. The dogs barked and the people partied until 4 in the morning. Now mind you it wasn’t just a bunch of kids. It was Mom and Dad, Grandma, and two teenagers. All were up having a good time.

During the night they wandered up and down the camp roads talking and shining their flashlights into the tents. It seems that one of them had had too much to drink and kept crashing into things; apologizing as they went. I didn’t mind too much because I figured that the noise was keeping away the bears.

Then the rain started; it was about 3 am. I could hear it pelting against the tent as it fell. Max slept through it until about 5. He really needed to go to the bathroom so we climbed out of the tent. Since we didn’t bring any rain gear with us we threw towels over our heads and headed out.

The rain had been coming down so hard we found that everything was flooded. Max and I slogged to the restrooms in 4 inch of deep water. When we got done we headed back to our tent where we found that the site had also flooded and everything including the tent was soaked.

We packed everything up and stowed it all in the car. And then we sat huddled in it until the office opened at 8. During that time we noticed that in the next site over the dogs were missing; the tents were gone; and the two pickup trucks had disappeared.

I assumed that they couldn’t handle the rain and had left long before us. After we got home someone suggested that maybe they had been thrown out for all of the noise. There was a rule after all that quiet time was from 9 at night to 7 in the morning. They certainly weren’t quiet.

It was a wonderful trip though the rain put a damper on our last day. Our revised plan had been to spend the morning swimming before checking out at noon. After that we were going to stop at a place called “The Basin” to do some hiking. We were expecting to get home by 4 in the afternoon.

However, with all of the torrential down pours we headed straight for home and arrived at 11 o’clock.

My regular readers may have noticed that this post was a little different than most. Generally I talk about Max’s disorders or some other illness that is being addressed. Except for the mention of medications at the beginning there was nothing to talk about.

My son thrived on being out in the wilderness. I can almost imagine him living outside permanently when he is older. There were no upsets; he just had fun.

Except for the fact that Dad was a little grumpy, everything was perfect.