I can go for years at a time and manage to forget having made the trip. It was one of those vacations that leave you wanting never to leave home again. Just rest and quiet from here on out, please god.
You know, there was nothing wrong with any of the PARTS, it was the whole that put me off travel for years. Travel and tents. Travel and tents and road food. And bugs. And cold water showers.
We'd only been married for about two years, maybe three, and we'd already taken one extended trip that involved camping in parks outside cities rather than wasting all that money on expensive motels. That time we went up the Blue Ridge and over to the coast until we made it to Philly (and Jim's ex- and his kids). It wasn't bad. No deadlines; no rush.
Second time's farce. We put the southeast into two weeks. Nags Head, Ocracoke, Savannah, Apalachicola and the entire Florida panhandle, Biloxi, Houma, the French Quarter, Little Rock. The epicenter of the New Madrid Fault.
That is an awful lot of tent-pack-drive-unpack, tent-pack-drive-unpack. But it wouldn't have been bad if we had quit while we were simply tired, and dirty. We could have been home in four hours.
I am filthy, my clothes are in tatters and stains, and my husband decides he wants to go to Illinois and visit his old girlfriend. His beautiful, intelligent, accomplished...
Twenty-five years, and I'm still pissed.