Tracey Adventures: Brandt's vacation update...

Has it been almost 4 months since we updated this thing?!?!? Time sure does fly I suppose. Well let’s rewind back to early December and go from there. So shortly after the last post we celebrated our Tracey family Christmas here in UDH on Dec. 11 because Michelle and the kids would be travelling back to the land of the free to spend it with family. We all stayed in kingdom last year and it was a bit of a downer so we decided to at least get Michelle and the kids back so they could feel of the Christmas spirit. I’m not sure if it’s because Christmas doesn’t exist over here or if it’s because there is no snow but it’s just not the same. Regardless, our early Christmas celebration was awesome and the kids had a blast. It almost felt like Christmas but not quite. Two weeks later Michelle and the kids left and I enjoyed some bachelor time. As much as I love my family it was nice to have a little time to myself to do whatever I wanted. I had some very high hopes of hanging out with some buddies who work a 35/35 schedule for service companies. We had it all planned out: zip over to Bahrain, see the new Star Wars movie, BBQ every night, dig for more desert roses, go hunting for fossilized shark teeth, spend some time in the batting cage, etc, etc. It didn’t happen. Not even the batting cage. Their phones never stopped ringing and I had two problematic rigs to deal with.

Michelle’s flight was at 1am so we left camp around 8:30pm to make sure we gave ourselves enough time. As soon as I started the SUV I remembered that there was hardly any fuel in it. No problem though, we have a gas station here on camp. Turns out they close sometime before 8:30pm. Right on. We’ve got less than a quarter tank and it’s easily 45 minutes to the next gas station along the highway. I start doing the math and figure it’s going to be tight. So rather than drive 140 km/hr I go at a moderate 110 km/hr to conserve fuel. Here’s how the conversation went:

Kayden: how much gas do we have?

Me: a little less than a quarter tank.

Kayden: what percentage? *(he thinks of everything in terms of iPad battery life)

Me: hard to say, 15-20 percent

Kayden: WE’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT!

Me: It’s ok, I’ll drive slower, we’ll make it

Kayden: No Dad, you need to go much faster than usual
Me: That burns more fuel, we’ll run out for sure

Kayden: You sure we’ll make it?

Every 5 minutes or so Kayden would ask for an update on our progress. As much fun as it is to mess with him he’s very anxious to begin with so I decided that today was not the day. We ended up stopping at a highway gas station which raised Michelle’s blood pressure a bit. Just imagine going to the worst part of town and getting gas there while everyone stares at you because you obviously don’t belong. Difference is that you’re probably at more risk of getting into trouble where you are rather than where we are. We carried on our way but now since we had to drive slower and stop 10 minutes for gas we were now behind schedule a bit so we needed to take a shortcut to get to the airport. Again, no problem because this was the same way my taxi driver took me last time. As Michelle can attest I have a very good sense of direction and can usually find my way without too many issues. That’s fine but when you have a 3 year old that likes to get car sick and you take a short cut that has a few too many bumps and a few too many turns you’re asking for trouble. Luckily, we had some gravol in the car and Michelle gave Colby a dose when he started turning a pale shade of green. We thought we caught it in time but we didn’t. Colby decided to puke all over Michelle and himself while we were getting them checked in. Stomach flu or car sickness? Stomach flu or car sickness? The stomach flu had been going around camp so the next 24 hours were going to be filled with anxiety for Michelle.

Anyways, rather than driving 2 hours in the dark across camel infested territory I chose to stay in Dhahran’s luxury accommodation called “Steineke Hall”. It’s named after Max Steineke who was the head geologist who found oil here in Sand Land. If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be living here. However, if it wasn’t for him the price of oil would likely be a lot higher but we’re not going to go down that road. Anyways, at 200sr/night (~$52USD/night) it wasn’t too bad. I’ve stayed in much worse rooms for a lot more money (Devon’s Pike Camp @ $220/night).

It wasn’t 15 minutes after I left the airport Michelle called me in a panic. They wouldn’t let her through customs. They’d taken Colby’s passport and disappeared into an office. We were at the airport with plenty of time but instead of Michelle going through customs/security right away we decided to let the kids burn some energy on the indoor playground. It wasn’t overly busy so Michelle got into line about 30 minutes before the plane began boarding. Apparently, the last time we came back from Bahrain the customs agent didn’t stamp Colby out and they needed to get everything sorted between Bahraini customs and Saudi customs before they’d let Michelle through. Michelle was convinced that they weren’t going to let her through so I stopped on the highway, pulled a hook and started driving the wrong way on the highway. No problem though. Just put on your hazards and flash your lights at every car that comes by. They get it. I was about halfway up an overpass off-ramp (still going the wrong direction) when Michelle called and said that they sorted everything out. Sweet deal. I flipped a hook and headed back towards Dhahran. The family got to the plane just as it was boarding, hopped on, got situated and had an uneventful flight to Calgary via Amsterdam.

I woke up the morning after dropping the family off, gave my boss a quick operational update (both rigs running smooth), handled a couple of things/appointments in the city and then slipped across the causeway to the island of additional freedom and the “other” white meat…BAHRAIN! I don’t know what it is but as soon as I get onto the causeway I begin to relax. It seriously feels like a weight gets lifted and I calm down a bit. Now the important part about this trip was that Star Wars: Episode 7 had JUST been released that day. I went straight to the mall, bought my tickets and waited in anticipation. While waiting I went to Carrefour (equivalent to Wal-Mart Super Center / Super Target) and picked up some discount Christmas items. Surprisingly, there were a lot of Muslims purchasing these items too which seemed a bit strange. Anywho, the day had been perfect so far, no issues, no phone calls, not many emails, PERFECT. The way that a Thursday should be. Well that all went to hell in a hand basket about 1 hour into Episode 7. My phone started going crazy. Turns out one of the rigs decided to entirely change the completions plan. Ugh. This pretty much set the tone for my 2+ weeks of bachelor life. Made the time pass pretty quickly though which was nice.

I’m sure y’all are pretty bored by now (yes, I say “y’all” now – special thanks to Todd, Courtney, Randy and Ashley) so I’ll speed it up some. The next weekend was Christmas and it kind of sucked to be alone but I had Christmas lunch with a few of the other “orphans” here on camp and it was alright. Caught up on some TV shows/movies, got some serious gym sessions in and started preparing for vacation. Everything was going great, rigs were running smooth, paperwork up to date, handovers ready to go, no problems, feeling great, ready to rock. Then I got hit with the stomach flu 36 hours before flying out. At first I was calm thinking it would pass by the next morning. Wrong. Dead wrong. It was worse. Way worse. I won’t go into the gory details but let’s put it this way – it lasted for 11 days and I lost 8 lbs. Not the way I wanted to start vacation. I also had the privilege to spend New Year’s Eve in the Dammam airport. Everyone I told about this felt really bad for me but I just said “hey listen, it could be a lot worse. I could be stuck here in the middle of Sand Land all alone with nothing to do.” I flew from Dammam to Frankfurt then Frankfurt to Orlando with my stomach going through an entire gymnastics routine. I got in a day before Michelle, the kids and her folks so I spent some quality time behind the lens and tried to let the creative juices flow. I don’t think I could spend more than a couple days in Disney World alone but it wasn’t too bad. Had some great conversations with Disney cast members. The best by far was trying to describe Trailer Park Boys to a couple of the German cast members working the caramel shop in the Germany pavilion. There was a Canadian cast member there and between the two of us I’m sure these German fellows now think all Canadians are a bunch of knobs. If only I had the skills of my cousin Dallas or uncle Dan to do a Bubbles impression. Then they may have understood.

Later that evening Michelle and the rest of the family arrived and I met them at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort. All seven of us crammed into a 300 sq. ft room for a couple of nights before we checked in to Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was really nice to spend some time with family again and it makes a person realize how important face-to-face time is when you live so far apart. During our week together we were fortunate enough to catch the final showing of the Osbourne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I have never seen Christmas lights like this before in my life and they all danced and flashed to the Christmas music. At first it was a bit much to take in but after a couple minutes it was really nice. The best part was the nativity that Disney had set up. It was great to see that this corporation was still keeping Christ in Christmas. That’s one of the things we love about Disney – they stick to their roots and don’t change just because that’s what society demands. As you can see, the nativity didn’t affect crowds too much.

The rest of the week was fairly standard for us, up at the break of dawn (love jetlag for this effect), straight to a park, ride as much as we can without waiting in lines, grab lunch, find something else to do in the afternoon, back to the park in the evening. The weather was cooler than we had hoped but after last year’s trip we planned for this. No big deal though…could’ve been worse…could’ve been snowing. Later that week the kids participated in their first RunDisney events. Colby ran the 100m with Michelle, Skylar did the 200m with Grandma Karen and Kayden did the 400m on his own. It was really cool and somehow got Michelle thinking that she needs to do the ½ marathon next year. I think she’s crazy but I decided to jump on the bandwagon as well. Then off to the boat we went…..

Disney Cruise is our new home away from disney that place is awesome , kids club all day and all the disney trivia you could imagine ! Everyone had a blast full with starwars days at sea which was as cool as you think it could be . We saw the foruce awakens 3 times on the boat met many characters , along with going to mexico and the grandcaymen , swimming with dolphin and turtles .

Once we got off the boat we still had another full week to enjoy disney which was Wonderfull and can’t wait to press repeat and do it all again. We are so Greatfull that we are able to do and enjoy these Wonderfull family times together .. For lack of better terms , building so many memories and even though this does not seem like it its is part of our #Adventure . Because with out living in sand land there is no way would could do annoys these things or appreciate them.