It has been a while since my bride and I have taken some days, went somewhere and just enjoyed the trip. No one to visit, no agenda, no plan. Just a 4 day trip using some of my airline miles, some of my hotel points, and renting a car for about $10/day. We targeted Tamps/St. Pete, packed our swimsuits and headed out early on a Friday morning.
A few discoveries were found along the way for me. Apparently I have a hard time ratcheting down from business travel to vacation travel. When traveling on business I am quick through the security at airports, I make my way as quickly as possible to the gate, I run at a different RPM. My bride is not on this pace.
So for the first day I had to slow down, take deep breath, and enjoy the ride.
Also on the first day I was bombarded with emails from work. So I am covertly trying to answer the questions, put out the fires, conduct business. This dual life was making me grumpy. It manifested in our trip as mild, constant bickering. Couples who have logged as many years as we have rarely have the towering infernos of fights that marked our younger years. No, it is more of a constant little skirmish that can go on days and if not checked can become a lifestyle. In the midst of one of our little back and forths I realized this was all my fault for not putting the silly phone away and pay attention to our trip. I texted the kids and told them to use my personal cell number or their mother's number that I was signing off on the business phone. I shut it down, plugged it in to recharge, and had a very pleasant remainder of the weekend.
On landing in Tampa we got our car, checked into our suite at the Doubletree, changed into shorts and tees (I always travel with long sleeves and long pants, airplanes can be brutally cold) and headed out to explore Clearwater and surrounding areas. I drove, my bride navigated. This is where technology has changed our relationship. In the old days my bride's sense of direction was suspect. Now she reads the instructions and passes them along to me. We have found our destination every time. She is a wizard with the I-phone apps, so she gets to guide us from one spot to the next.
We headed back and had dinner in Ybor city at a Spanish restaurant, left before dark (if you know the area you know why), not a great area. Saturday morning was a trip to the beach in St. Pete, where the sand was primarily prickly little seashell parts which prompted a trip to Target for beach shoes. Dinner in Hyde Park in Tampa at the Green Lemon which was a good choice. If you ever find yourself in Tampa for dinner go to Hyde Park, a great little area for dining.
Sunday morning found us on Venice Beach, black grainy sand mixed with white sand gave it a more "gray" look, but fewer folks and a lot more families. Then lunch at a great Italian place in downtown Venice and a meandering trip back to the hotel where we swam in the pool and dodged late afternoon thunderstorms.
Then back to Clearwater on Monday and lunch and finally back to airport for my bride to fly home while I worked in Tampa for a few days.
That hotel suite was one lonely, quiet place after she left, so I broke out the workout clothes and spent an hour working off all the good food and the morose attitude.
It was one of those trips where I struggled to remember our stops along the way as I wrote this, but I remembered certain snapshots of our trip. Little jokes that cracked us up that no one else would get. Observations that we shared, observations that we didn't agree on, but could laugh about while discussing. The little texts that we shared after she was home that seemed to continue the trip a little longer.
There is not anyone else in the world that I can share this type of trip with. We have the shared scars of what the world has tried to do to us. We have the scars of what we have done to each other. But there is no one else who understands the relationship like we do. We have been through all the battles and come out the other side, still committed to each other, still in love, still willing to take up arms against a world that does everything in its power to split us up. There is just something about this chick that makes me tick.
Godspeed to all the lifetime lovers, sometimes the journey is level and straight and lovely to see.
Don
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