Stupid Yellow Cheese

Did you know that In-N-Out Burger serves all natural, preservative free food?  Well, it does, and yesterday was one of those days where I did not have time to cook.  You see, we were to leave on vacation today and I had many errands to run and things to do before we left - none of which involved cooking dinner for my family.  So through the In-N-Out drive thru I went.  And I decided to let Ben have a cheeseburger instead of a hamburger. 

Sounds like not a big deal, except that we identified ANNATTO as a behavior trigger for Ben some time ago.  Annatto is the all natural coloring used to make cheese yellow.  Why is it necessary? No idea,  because the white version of cheddar or American cheese tastes exactly the same. 

Well, ever since we found out that corn syrup was a major trigger, I've been retrying things that I had thought were triggers in the past, to make sure it wasn't just the corn syrup that caused the problems.  The day before we had to leave on an eight hour road trip was probably not the smartest time to try out a known/suspected trigger food.  And we all paid dearly for my mistake.  Because lo and behold ANNATTO IS A TRIGGER, and we spent eight hours pent up in our motorhome with a raving lunatic. 

Here's the symptoms:  picking a fight with EVERYONE (even the dog), the world is out to get him, "I don't like you MOM!" about a million times, "LIA STOP LOOKING AT ME!" about a million times, restless, bored, antsy, grumpy and all around angry, and a horrible HORRIBLE listener (couldn't follow any directions).

So, about thirty minutes from our final destination I finally had Darrin swing through an Albertson's where I bought some club soda.  About 1/4 cup of club soda and Ben was mostly back to his awesome self.  I have no idea why this works, but it's the sodium bicarbonate and for some reason it stabilizes his system.  We call it "Magic Soda" because usually within five minutes it can totally settle down a reaction.

Sure enough, the rest of our evening was pretty good. 

During the eight hour road trip, I finally pulled out the user's manual for my camera and started learning what all the different settings were for.  So I got some pictures of the scenery along the way from California to McKenzie Bridge, Oregon where we are visiting for my cousin Jackie's wedding.  (If there are any crazy internet stalkers out there, we have a housesitter - so don't think you can run amok at our house while we're gone or steal our chickens!)

Here was the view from our motorhome window (try not to notice the windshield bugs):