Travel has gotten easier since I came to accept who I am and what my basic needs are. I used to feel so guilty about ruining everyone else's vacation time when my pain tolerances were exceeded. I think I've figured out why that thinking was backwards. I always tried to power through the ultimate fatigue, muscle soreness, and sudden edema. Now at the first signs of those things, I know that I need to send up the surrender flag. I announce that it's time for me to rest. I turn over the car keys (like I did an hour into a two and a half hour drive from the airport), and I snooze in the passenger seat. I take naps. I take pain pills. And I keep my calm. I ruin a whole lot fewer trips now, by being true to myself.
I did pull the middle-aged woman card today. I haven't rented a car in almost two years, so I had no idea what my gold membership number was. I called their customer service line, to get my login information, update my drivers license number, and since the nice lady with the Southern accent offered, go ahead and make my reservation over the phone. That last part was a huge mistake. I asked specifically for a car in the same class as a Ford Focus, like I drive at home. That is what I have always been told is a compact car. Once we arrived in Atlanta, everything went sideways. I expected to walk up to a stall with my name on it, with a Focus or similar in it. Instead, my name was on a "zone 3" list, which sent us to the far end of the garage, where a few tiny car suits were parked. A Ford Fiesta is NOT the same as a Focus. All of our luggage barely fit in my Focus on the way to the airport in Colorado. I was not driving away in a Fiesta, or a Yaris, or a Versa. These are subcompact cars. I feel claustrophobic just being in one of those with the door closed. Being on the freeway in one of those makes me feel exceptionally vulnerable and stressed out. The rest of the gang wanted me to just shut up and take what I'd been offered. Instead, I said "Hold my purse," and trudged back to the desk to complain. I cheerfully smiled at the agent and said I was unhappy and that I didn't want to drive a tuna can. I tried repeatedly to ask again for a Focus. Apparently Hertz doesn't understand the significant difference in size between compact and subcompact, because she tried to tell me that what they had were indeed Foci. So I asked for a mid-size. She suggested Chevy Cruze. I made stink-face and she went to a Nissan Altima. I immediately perked up, and she switched us out. Yes, I had to pay an upcharge, but according to the signs I saw, I only paid 57% of what that charge was supposed to be. They escorted me to a brand new vehicle, and said to drive it over to where everyone else waited. I was told I rolled up "like a pimp" in the nicer car. I felt like Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes when she announced to the women she had just bested, "Face it, girls, I'm older and I have more insurance." This car is way more fun to drive than a car suit.
We stopped for lunch halfway out from the airport. I tried to keep going after that, but I didn't make it more than about fifteen or twenty minutes before I admitted that I was on the verge of falling asleep. I handed over control, as I mentioned above, and let myself go unconscious until we arrived at the resort. We're at a state park lake resort in southern Alabama. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't realize it would be this pretty, even when I was told it would be. After a short nap, I wandered around by myself at sunset, standing by the water, enjoying the hell out of the silence that was only broken by the sound of fish jumping up to bite bugs on the surface of the shallows. I stood for fifteen or twenty minutes waiting for the heron I had seen flying to take off again so I could take his picture. Instead, he was content to stand on the dock next to a fisherman the entire time, until I gave up. I found Mr X in exactly the same point where I'd started my walk, in a parking lot behind the kitchens, trying to convince the colony of stray kittens to come up and say hello. (And after dinner, there might have been some chicken strips that found their way into the same parking lot in tiny pieces.)
I haven't seen the bride and groom yet. Mostly we are getting settled and resting up after our flight and drive. Tomorrow the real excitement begins.
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