Road Trip, Part Two (Or the stuff you don't tell the grandkids years later when you pull out the slide show)

Now For The Togetherness Report
(originally entitled "And Then She Took A Benadryl" )
We had a great time on the trip. Perhaps parts of it did not go as planned, however. (Cough, cough)

See prior post for the description of the property itself...it was so refreshing (once we GOT there, ha!) to be out, be together (husband and myself) and to have great weather to boot. All that is proof that rough starts CAN be overcome.

I'm going to give a pretty realistic, if not somewhat tongue-in-cheek account of the beginning of the whole endeavor. Keep in mind that my husband and I are generally mild mannered and very loving people, who value each other as friends and life loves (a gift to each other from God in the most real sense), and are usually on the same ball team in our efforts and attitudes.

There is, however, the occasional glitch. Glitches can be overcome, and mended. And learned from ;-)


In short this is the REAL scenario that played out this morning. Hopefully we have both learned from it. And are wiser and more schooled in working through our "moments"....we hope...yeah, yeah, read on...

It went something like this. We'll try not to recreate this circumstance again: (laughing!)



1. My husband drove.

2. My husband cannot safely drive and read a 10 year old Road Atlas at the same time.

(Know that before the end of the trip, we'd nearly been creamed or creamed another vehicle multiple times. It's not entirely his fault, as you'll soon see. I was in no condition to be my usual Navigator self, deciphering the more cryptic road map anomolies while making good travel time. Alas, I was a lump. Usually I'm an accomplished backseat driver..ha! We make a great team.)

3. My husband and I had previously stayed up the entire (ENTIRE) night before discussing properties, etc. Having worked the prior night before, he had slept all yesterday. Myself, NOT being on an all-night work schedule, had NOT slept all yesterday. And yet I stayed up with him to discuss the trip...all night last night. I am not 20 and can no longer do all nighters without dire consequences.

4. I had previously anticipated the glorious Togetherness said road trip would provide my husband and me, touring yet undiscovered paths of discovery, stopping to photograph the nature, architecture, local flavor, etc. I had brought The New Camera, hoping this trip would be its maiden voyage of extraordinary photo glutting. It is new, digital, and can handle my amateurish ways and still crank out some basically great pics. I packed The Camera. We would bond.
My husband, however, was anticipating covering the ground from Point A to Final Destination in as little time possible despite the many temptations along the way.

5. EARLY yesterday morning, we prepared to get on the road. I showered. J threw a few things in the truck. I began having sneezing fits that wouldnt stop.
Would.
Not.
Stop.
So I took a Benadryl. (Herein is the first cruel plot twist.)

6. J wanted to fuel our day by grazing at Cracker Barrel. He ate. He was fueled. I ate. My world became drowsier, fuzzier, and carb-infused.

7. We got in the car to head out.

8. I immediately became comatose.

9. I awoke twice. Only long enough to reposition my head from a right angle to vertical again, and with the remotest cognizance of a prolonged guttural roaring noise at close range. I'm not sure how many counties I snored through.

10. Some time later, I realized the truck had stopped. My otherwise amiable spouse was muttering and making jerky motions with the map book. He tried to rouse me, as he got out to pump some gas at a gas station. "Come on," he urged..."If you need a rest stop, you need to go here."

11. I'm two hours into my Benadryl-and-Sleep-Deprivation-Induced Slow Motion Reality. I struggle toward the light. I get the door open and sit there staring at my feet, willing myself to be fully awake before walking into the busy gas station, full of morning commuters. I do not want to appear as I feel...utterly drunk and quite bed-headed.

12. I make it out of the vehicle. My time frame was not my husband's. Always the master of the situation, I see him standing well across the place near the front door to the store, motioning widely with his hands and saying for all to hear, "The bathroom is THERE, honey....THERE" (pointing vigorously)

13. Even in my altered state this produced an awareness in me of great annoyance. Rhett Butler would not have announced to Scarlett that THE BATHROOM IS THERE in front of all Atlanta. I scowled, embarrassed, and attempted to walk. By now, husband is pumping gasoline on the other side of the vehicle.

14. I meet him as he's finishing up. "Can you PLEASE not ANNOUNCE it like I'm 2 years old?" I say, frowning.

15. His brow is furrowed. People are watching. He is doing everything with annoyed jerky motions, in a hurry. He hears a splashing sound. The gasoline is overflowing and spilling on the ground and near his shoes. My world still a slow motion blur, as I'm registering the gas overflowing, he is taking the spout out of the tank. And that is when it pours right across my bare feet and sandals.

16. You may be enjoying this now. The other customers certainly were. I'm glad I can't recall the EXACT words I used. I went into the bathroom to clean up.

17. There was only one bathroom...a unisex one. As in a single Unisex Public Gas Station Bathroom... That grossed me out, and I tried to not touch anything. I refused to glance at the floor.

There was only a toilet and a sink, and paper towels and soap. And a line waiting outside. I gingerly balanced the toe of my sandal on the tip of the toilet seat (I would shuffle through the grass HARD outside to remove further creepiness from the bottoms of my sandals later), wetted some paper towels with soap and water, and washed the gasoline off my ankles and feet as best I could. It took a lot of rinsing. OK, I was done. I had to get OUT of the grossness of the unisex bathroom.

18. As I was about to exit, I saw that my foot-rinsing had left small puddles of water all around the base of the toilet. OH NO. The people waiting to get IN would think I was grossly incontinent. I will skip some of the details.
But yes.
I DID clean the floor around the base of the public unisex toilet.
That did not help my state of mind. Enough said.

(Except to add that a partial recreation of that teeth's edge sensation might be experienced by brushing your teeth with toothpaste and then drinking some unsweetened cranberry juice.
Brrrrrrrr......)

19. Long story shorter, J was now in a Take Charge mode, which often kicks in when things aren't going exactly as planned, and he told me we might be lost. Wherever we stopped, I tried to take out my camera and get a good shot of this or that out the window. This drove him crazy. He became adamant that I not advertise that I was a tourist by doing that ANY MORE RIGHT NOW. Overcome by Benadryl and gas fumes, I was not taking that "request" very graciously. Words were exchanged. Loving Designated Driver Husband reverted into Map Adversary Rambo Driver Person....destination Get There.

I declare that till I could form complete sentences again and help decipher the rural routes and state road whatevers, we were our own worst life forms.

20. It did get better.
Slowly.

It got so much better that we ended up happy again, very much enjoying having FINALLY arrived (survived?) and then laughing about a lot of it. (See prior post for land pics and that part of the story)

I won't further belabor this account beyond a brief mention of the later occurence of needing a CLEAN bathroom on the return trip (when you've been out in the middle of nowhere and have just drunk a Big Gulp sized iced tea) and my husband's insistence that YES it IS ok to walk into THAT (nearest) tiny (devoid-of-customers) small town coffee shop boutique-store place right off the street just before closing time JUST to use their FACILITIES WITHOUT stopping to buy a drink thus putting me in the unenviable position of being met with a contemptuous, disgusted, and offended glare from the proprietor both before and after, while simutaneously in the retelling having advanced my writing skills to the wholly redeeming position of having just penned the most atrocious of run-on sentences in the blogosphere, hooray!

(Better stop while I'm ahead? ha!)

(whew! and now to get some sleep:))