Tuesday, May 14, 2019

From the travel journal - North Carolina 2019

5/10/19 at 2:00 p.m. (Cara)

We have dropped off the dog at our friend's house. According to Tom, Elliot is settled in on the floor, licking his paws. I didn't go in. I didn't want to see his sad eyes when Tom left. Elliot knows as soon as the suitcases come out of the closet that he is being shipped off. It makes me too sad.

Traffic on the bridge to Tampa sucked. As always. Seriously? At 2:20 p.m. on a Friday? Why aren't people working? Indoors? It took us an hour to get through Tampa. Tom gets grouchy in traffic. I refused to let him doodle on his phone since he was driving. He is a phone user when he drives. I wouldn't let him even touch his phone, and I consistently gave him helpful suggestions on how to drive. He was not receptive to either. Huh.

When I travel by car, its usually not with my husband but with other women; my mother, my kids, Kelly, and recently SueG. We have a lot to talk about. Stories. Happenings in our daily life. There rarely is silence, and if god forbid, we have a lull; it is filled with fun made-up car games. Traveling with the husband? Jeez, way too much silence. The man and I had nothing to talk about. I kept searching my brain for topics he might enjoy, but always in the back of my mind was him telling me, like ten years or more ago, that when I speak, he hears the ocean. Also, when we recently drove to clear Darcy from her dorm, I read the first five chapters of my book, WHICH IS FINISHED BY THE WAY, aloud. He enjoyed the first two chapters. Before I could get through chapter five, he interrupted and told me to cut to the chase. Uh? What? It's a book! Which I said aloud. His response was to ask a million questions which he felt should've been answered by chapter five. That's the kind of feedback I've been looking for, only uh, one problem.

I answered those questions in chapter 3-5!

Tom: "Oh, well, I don't think I was really listening. This is the part of the book where I'd skip ahead. I don't care about all this mushy love nonsense."

Me: "It's a romance novel."

So, all of that was in my head when I searched for general topics for discussion, and eventually, I gave up. I put on music instead and sang. He got bored, and he was tired. He's a podcast guy. When he suggested a boring podcast station, I took over driving. The rule usually is the driver chooses the radio/Bluetooth music, etc. I didn't bring this up with Tom because I didn't want to listen to his boring shit, so I just took over the driving. I fired up a podcast called That's Awesome done by two General Hosptial actors who interview other GH actors. Tom went to sleep.

My dad taught me how to drive on the interstate. I think I'm a decent driver because of his teachings. One of his lessons was staying to the right unless passing. Tom, on the other hand, believes in always being on the left because there is less chance of getting hit. I don't see his logic, and it drives me crazy. Another teaching from my father was getting over when a car is pulled off to the side. It is now a law in most states, mainly because of the deaths that have occurred from this like people changing flats, etc. It's a pet peeve of mine that so many people DO NOT obey this law. My husband would be one of those people.

Let's say the first couple of hours was full of a lot of disagreement.

He got better after he slept.

We got into more stop and go traffic in Gainesville. Three lanes of traffic moved, but slowly. The left lane seemed to be moving faster, but I figured it would eventually slow, so I stayed in the middle lane. Finally, after about half an hour, I switched to the left. I should've done that way earlier. That lane moved, and eventually, we found out why. Some yahoo trucker had just stopped dead in the middle lane and was adjusting the twenty plus cars he was carrying on his truck. He was strolling around tightening straps and acting like he was in his darn driveway at home. Yes, there was a wreck a half a mile further, but what the what?

We got around him and finally past the wreck, and we were back in business. We didn't have any more issues after that. Tom started getting into the GH podcasts. We stopped for dinner, changed drivers, and we drove halfway before pulling over for the night at a Microtel Inn by Wyndham. I have their rewards since I'm a Club Wyndham owner, so I figured why not? Also, they are cheap, and my husband is all about cheap for sleeping in a bed for six hours.


This place was cheap, all right. It was undergoing renovations, and there were boxes and boxes of materials everywhere you walked. There were supplies like paint and brushes lying around. The worst thing? No elevator. We were on the second floor, and it was a jam in the stairwell with those of us lugging our cases upstairs and those coming downstairs. Tom griped about that the whole way. I reminded him that we were also in a Microtel Inn in NC. One that he insisted we book because it was like $62 a night. He had no memory of that, of course.

The room was spotless. Very modern. One of the updated ones that didn't have that horrible full wall of mirrors that Microtel has that I hate. We showered and were in bed before eleven. Day one in the books.

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