The GPS told us the actual drive time to San Antonio was about 7 hours, but it didn’t take into consideration the traffic in Houston. We averaged about 20 miles an hour just about all the way across the city. Houston was hot and humid. The Cayenne started to overheat in the slow traffic, so I was forced to open the windows and turn off the AC. Even with 26 lanes of traffic, we crept along for what seemed like a hundred miles.
Because of our late start, we stopped at the Candlewood Suites in Houston’s City Centre, never actually traveling all the way across the city. We ate dinner in the onsite Grille, Chris eating light because he still suffered from the effect of his binge the previous night. I was secretly happy he felt bad.
I have never had much sympathy for anyone with a hangover. It is a fully preventable disease. Chris suffered in silence because he knew I would give him a piece of my mind if he complained. Or so I thought. He rarely told me what was on his mind, so I got into a habit of assigning thoughts to him that may or may not be accurate.
About halfway through our meal, he said, “I will never drink that much again. I still feel like shit. Let’s not leave early tomorrow. Maybe we can take a day and sleep in. At least I need to.”
I nodded and said, “Go back to the room, now and go to sleep. Call me when you wake up in the morning. They have coffee and a continental breakfast down here in the morning until 11:00 am.”
“Maybe we should get on the road after the morning rush hour,” he said.
“Just call me when you are ready to get moving,” I repeated.
“You will answer your phone?”
I glared at him, rose from my chair and walked back to my room, unescorted.
I opened my laptop and tried to determine if there was a better route to take to get this over with quicker. After a few minutes, I gave up and turned on the TV to watch the same movie I watched the previous evening. The second time around, it didn’t get any better. I was bored with the trip and bored with my traveling companion. We had to do something different or we would likely just give up and go home. Was a house really worth all of this aggravation?
I called Chris’s cell phone and he answered with “What?”
“I was thinking. Maybe we should try to make this trip more bearable. Like maybe we should pick a tourist spot in each state and make it a point to visit.”
“Why?”
“It will give us something to look forward to instead of just a month or more of driving,” I said. “I took Snow to a plantation in Baton Rouge while you were still in bed and it was great fun. I learned a little about the state of Louisiana, too. It broke up the monotony of just driving.”
“Well, if I agree to that, where would we stop, next?”
“We are turning north toward Little Rock, Arkansas next. We go from US 59 to Interstate 30 North. There is a nice dog park we can stop at in Texarkana.”
“Okay. Whatever,” he said.
I hung up on him and looked into the park a little. Like everything else in our lives, I had to make the plans. It was like Chris just rode along in life without thinking about anything.
Finally, I decided to drive instead of sightseeing. Maybe I would feel better once we got to Little Rock.
Karen Writes More Than Karen Crochets 