I don’t think I’ve ever really had a “bad trip” before, but boy, this was one. The shortest possible version: I had no idea how much sensory sensitivity and migraine triggering I would have from being at Hershey Park. I wanted the kids to get to do as much as they possibly could, but the more we stayed at the park, the sicker I got. It was a horrible snowball effect. I may have slept fifteen hours Saturday night. Even trying to get in the hotel pool with the kids didn’t work — by the time I was knee-high in it, I was sick again.

By Monday, it didn’t matter if we were in the park or the pool or anywhere. I was curled up in the back of the car while everyone else went to the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum (I went in, but the smell made me ill and I had to leave right away).  And while Tucker set up for a poster presentation of the American Chemical Society’s regional conference, I passed out trying to get from the car to the Lodge, hit my head, and got a concussion. I had three ER visits in a 24 period — one in Hershey and two in Philadelphia. Tucker got to present his poster for about half an hour.

Nothing went the way we had hoped it would. I had had weird premonitions about the trip from before we left, and there was some planning that could have been done a little more proactively, but this really took the cake.

You wouldn’t know it from the pictures, though. The AACA Museum looked amazing. Tuck got to see his favorite car (a ’59 Cadillac something, although I think he prefers the convertible) and they have three of the Tucker automobiles there. The kids worked on an assembly line — and, honestly, they had SO much fun at Hershey park, day AND night. I wish they had not had to worry about me during it, and I wish I’d not felt so left out and down.

Life is not perfect. There is not time to dwell on this particular example. It’s Wednesday, and the kids’ homeschool evaluator comes Friday. We won’t have finished everything I wanted to, this year, and we probably will continue into the summer on those projects until they ARE finished, but Friday is still The Last Day of “School”. Saturday, dance school portraits; Sunday, Tucker’s Medallion ceremony; Monday, Tucker’s college graduation.

Now, the high points of Hershey. Including Tuck in drag, and my CT scan.