Man is in the Forest -- the next to the last chapter

Shortly after re-evacuating I was relieved to find that my allergy symptoms were dissipating.  This made me very happy. 

I stayed on the phone with our insurance company that afternoon for quite awhile.  I also called our city, the local animal control (to see if they could take our pets), and our vet's office.  There are a lot of mundane details in this entry, but since I'm also recording this for my posterity, I felt it important to include more of a play-by-play.

Here's what happened:

I explained to our insurance company that it seemed I am allergic to whatever burned.  I was exhausted. I was emotional.  The first time we evacuated, I had plenty of support.  This time, it was just me, the kids, and all the pets.  And it wasn't new.  Any sense of adventure was gone.  This time, it really just sucked.  There were two bright spots though:  Frankie was incredibly poised and helpful and our insurance rep was amazing.  She was compassionate, kind, understanding, and empathetic.   I cannot give them enough credit - we have USAA and they are incredible. I called several hotels, and, after consulting with Michael and our nanny, finally decided on Little America.  They offered a very reasonable evacuation rate, had spacious rooms, and were a decent commute for Michael's work.

That left the issue with the pets.  Little America (like so many hotels) is a pet-free hotel.  Honestly though, I could not imagine having that many pets cooped up in a hotel room with us.  It would have been awful. I knew I had to find placement for them.  I called the city animal shelter to see if they were still boarding evacuated animals, but they weren't able to help.

I spoke with our city and they made a call and found out the status of the fire relative to our home.  They assured me that it was highly unlikely that our home would have to be re-evacuated.  This helped, because I didn't want to bring my pets home and fear that they would suffer smoke inhalation from the re-invigorated blaze. Since the risk was almost nil, our nanny kindly brought the pets home.  She also took Frankie with her, and the two of them got some dinner on their way back to the hotel. 

Where are we?  Tuesday night.  So, Michael had gone to work, met me in Salt Lake, took the boys and me to dinner, and then we headed back to the hotel.

On Wednesday,  I called our insurance company again, concerned that I wouldn't be able to return to the home until the fire was a) completely contained and b) we had a smoke remediation service come to remove all of the smoke (from our house) and soot (from our garage).  Incidentally, I'd had a smoke remediation company come to our home on Monday, and I had gotten an idea of what needed to be done, but I didn't have a warm fuzzy feeling about that company and decided to explore other options. Again, USAA to the rescue.  They referred us to preferred contractors, and I made more calls.  Michael went to meet the contractors at our home, and grabbed more of our clean (but smoky) clothes while he was there.  He cleaned out the garage (which had needed it anyway and now really needed it so the work could be done) and met with the smoke remediation company.

The smoke remediation company came out and assessed our damage.  They told us they would bring ozone machines to rid the house of smoke, and a team of cleaners to wipe down all horizontal surfaces.


We had to make arrangements to have the pets go the vet to be boarded because smoke remediation involves using an ozone machine which essentially depletes the air of oxygen.  No living thing can be in a home while the ozone machine is in use because it is lethal.  In fact, had we owned plants, they would have been removed too.  He took the fish, the dog, and our two cats to the vet.  Thanks again to USAA (I sound like a commercial) for approving that expense as part of our displacement.  Our nanny took her cat to her cousin's house, and the outside cat stayed, well, outside.  Michael dropped the pets off and came back to the hotel and we all went to our favorite Thai place (conveniently located just blocks from our hotel) for dinner.

After dinner, I started to sort through our laundry and began experiencing all of my allergy symptoms again.  It might sound weird, but it was kind of reassuring to know that I really was allergic, and not just imagining things.  I hadn't anticipated having allergy symptoms from sorting the clothes that had been at home, but there's no doubt that that's exactly what was happening.

I spoke with USAA (again) the next morning.  They arranged to have a laundry service come and take every scrap of fabric out of our home.  Turns out that due to my allergies, we also needed our linens to be sent to a special cleaner (who deals with fire damage).  Michael took Thomas and went out to the house again (so much for staying downtown to give him a better commute) and made all of the arrangements.  He also brought our laundry home so that the laundry people could take care of it.  We had sorted bags into priority (meaning a week's worth of clothes that would be returned the next day) and everything else.

I took Adam and Max to our downtown, beautiful outdoor shopping plaza via Trax (our lightrail train system).  I discovered that the only outfit I had was ill-fitting.  I went to a store and bought a new outfit, on mega-sale.  It's funny, I suspected that I would be reimbursed for clothes I might have to purchase, but it mattered to me to be as frugal as possible.  I never once felt like it would be okay to live it up on my insurance.

Adam, Max, and I had lunch, and then we picked up a rental stroller.  We walked around for awhile and then I took Adam for ice cream at Ben & Jerry's.  Max was fussy too, so I got a little bit of mango sorbet and fed it to him.  By this point, Frankie and the nanny were almost back to the hotel from Herriman.  They met up with us for ice cream, and I returned our rental stroller.  I carried a dead-weight, completely asleep Max to the Trax station.  I never knew that a child could be quite that heavy.  Michael met us half-way through our journey and took us back to the hotel.

I forgot to mention that our nanny had been driving Frankie to school every day, going to work at her other job, and then picking Frankie up and taking her back to the hotel.  Frankie was missing her first period class every day, but it was far better than her missing so much school. Honestly, had Devin not been there I think we would have just kept Frankie out of school for the week, which would have been tough on many levels.

We all went out for dinner again that night at a place called Skybox.  They have a fairly run-of-the-mill menu but their kids meals come with tokens for their little arcade.  The kids and adults had fun playing skee-ball, pinball, and air hockey. 

I went to our local Smith's marketplace and bought a few necessities.  In my hasty sorting of laundry, I missed a few items we needed and shopped the sale rack to get them.

On Friday, Michael went to work.  Luckily, it was his early day and he finished at 2:30.  I mostly stayed in our room, having no stroller.  Eventually, I gathered up my courage (taking a two-year old and an infant anywhere by yourself without a stroller is a huge challenge) and took the kids downstairs for lunch.  We ate at the Little America Express Lunch Buffet, which sounds kind of fast-foodish but is actually the opposite.  It's a rather fancy buffet complete with linens, cold gourmet salads, several hot entrees in chafing dishes, a carving station, and almost no children.

Little America dining room (and yes, this is what it looks like at lunch time).

You may wonder why I would choose to take my toddler and infant to such a lovely place instead of taking them next door to the Little America coffee shop:

Coffee shop - if you look out the window you can see a Trax train blurring by as mentioned above.

I would claim temporary insanity and you might believe me, but the real reason is that the lunch buffet takes place in the Little America Steakhouse and Adam was dying to eat in the Steakhouse.  He had been such a great little helper and I felt he deserved a reward. He was so excited.  "We getta eat in the Steakhouse??? Wow!" The prices were actually fairly close in both places and honestly, I had eaten in the coffee shop a few times and was ready for a change of pace.  Plus, with a toddler to entertain, I liked the idea of being able to choose a variety of foods I knew he liked.

I ordered chocolate milk for Thomas and asked the hostess to remove our tablecloth.  She was reluctant to do so, and simply folded it in half, away from Thomas.  That worked out well, since five minutes later he spilled his entire cup of chocolate milk all over the tablecloth.  Cream colored tablecloths aren't that absorbent or that pretty when loaded down with chocolate milk, but they are more absorbent than the wooden table underneath. 

We went back to the room after lunch, and I settled Max down for a nap.  A couple of hours later, Frankie, and the nanny arrived, and we all went for a swim.  Michael was supposed to meet us at the pool but he got hung up at work.

We swam for awhile, and then Max fell asleep in the nanny's arms, in the pool.  We went back to our rooms to shower and start getting ready to go to dinner.

I spoke with the smoke remediation folks and they let us know that we could return home the next day.  I was so excited.  The hotel wasn't bad at all, but it certainly wasn't home.

We waited for our clothing to come back from the cleaning company.  It arrived around 5:30 and after getting it sorted, we went to an early dinner at Red Lobster.  It was Shrimpfest or something like that where everyone could get their fill of shrimp for $15.00 per person.  It was a little bit of a splurge, but we had been fairly cautious all week and it was within the budget that our insurance company gave us for our per diem.   And it was Friday, and we would be going home the next day, and I wanted to at least have what felt a little bit like a vacation now that our hotel stay was coming to a close.

After dinner, I went to Shopko and picked up diapers (an obvious necessity) and some Ghost Dots (a treat).  The Ghost Dots were a big hit.  They're all the same sort of glow in the dark kind of green (although they don't actually glow in the dark.  That would be scary since they're edible). 

When we got back to the hotel, Max was asleep but Michael wanted to go for a swim.  He took Adam and Thomas with him.  They had been gone for about 20 minutes when Max woke up.  I changed us both into our swimsuits and we headed to the pool.  Michael played with the babies and I gave Adam a swimming lesson.  We swam for about an hour and then headed up to bed.

The next day, Saturday, Michael and I got up early and took the boys to the Farmer's Market.  I was the only one that got out of the car since we had no stroller and I really only wanted to pick up a few things.  We took our wares back to the hotel and packed up our room.  Frankie and the nanny decided to head back to the house, and Michael and I took the boys for another swim.  Adam and I spent a little bit of time in the sauna, and then we headed back to the house.  I came home and started to gather receipts and paperwork to file with the National Guard, and Michael took the boys. 

Filing with the Guard will be the next and essentially final chapter.  It was an amazing experience.  I hope I can adequately describe it.

P.S.  I save all of Adam's clothes for hand-me-downs.  With eight plus years of his clothing, all of our seasonal wardrobes (Michael, Frankie, Adam, Thomas, Max, the nanny, and me) plus our towels, blankets, curtains, and other linens, we had 203 boxes of laundry.  We'll get it back this Thursday.  That's gonna be like Christmas, with a ton of gifts to put away.