As some of you know, I’ve been on something of a junket for the past 17 days. A 10 day trip to Washington State became a longer trip than anticipated, for some reasons that I would rather not disclose, but suffice it to say I was exploring revenue generating possibilities.
I have never been away from home for this long. Well, check that, without moving somewhere. Obviously, at two junctures in my life, I moved to San Francisco and Florida in search of love everlasting, only to discover love gone wrong in both places.
The longest I like to be gone is 10 days. That’s plenty for me. Eventually I want to enjoy a home cooked meal and sleep in my own bed, hopefully with someone in it. Yes, I can sleep alone, but really, who really enjoys that?
I can discuss this fact because I did the sleep alone thing for 17 days. Here’s what I found out. First, it’s nice to have the bed to yourself. No one is waking you up by stealing the covers or snoring. But then you realize that you miss the snoring more than you thought and its absence now keeps you up at night instead. It’s a no win situation.
It didn’t help that I was sequestered in the hotel for the first two days of the trip. I had managed to fly into Seattle during the once in a century snowstorm which was followed by a rare ice storm. I’m still not sure how my flight got into Seattle, but I was grateful that I had been smart this time and booked a hotel just a 1/4 mile from the airport.
About four days into the trip, I got the news I would need to stay longer than anticipated. I would need to stay an extra week. Now, I love Seattle and getting to stay longer there is not something I would ever dread. It is home. What caused the dread was that I had only packed enough clothes to last me about a week, 10 days at a stretch and now I had to add another week to the mix. It never dawned on me to do my laundry at the hotel. I’m not sure why. Instead, I just became very creative about my clothing selections and employed my favorite fabric rejuvenator, Febreeze.
I had learned a lot from my previous trip to Seattle where I had to stay a few extra days. The first time, I extended the contract on the car that I had gotten from Hotwire. Big mistake. The rate went from $15.95 per day to $35 per day for the additional days. This time, I simply booked a new reservation through Hotwire and got another car for $8.95 a day instead of keeping the one I had. Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
On the second leg of my seemingly endless journey, my good friends Cassie and Bobby took pity on my and let me get a break from the good(?) life at the Red Roof Inn. I slept at their respective houses and even had a home cooked meal, courtesy of Cassie. Thank God for good friends!
I also learned a lot about myself on this trip. First, I don’t really sweat changes in plans or even changes in travel anymore. Nothing bothers me, not even returning my first rental car because the lights were virtually non-existent at night. There was a time when I would have made due with that.
I found out too that I can be alone and actually enjoy my own company. This never used to be the case. It is the reason I often sought ill-advised relationships in my life, just so that I wouldn’t be alone. As you can imagine, this is a big shift in my mindset, one that caught me by surprise on my trip to the great Northwest.
However, not all things change. I am still somewhat embarrassed by lunch there. I was having a meeting with my partner in crime at CommuniCreations, Denise. We were planning some new ideas for the company. I ordered the Salmon BLT, a new favorite of mine. The last time I was in Seattle, I had it three times.
When it arrived, it tasted a bit like chicken. That’s because it was. They had given me the Chicken BLT instead. I didn’t even notice it until I was two bites in. We were engrossed in conversation so the food wasn’t the centerpiece of the lunchtime experience. No biggy, I thought. It was good.
Well, it was until Denise asked me how the Salmon BLT was and I said it tasted like chicken. To make a long story short, I ended up with the Salmon BLT and the Chicken BLT, and not because I spoke up about the error. As I said, some things don’t change.
It was my last day in Seattle and Mother Nature was showing off, of course. The Olympics were magnificent out the window of the restaurant, so after lunch I was seduced into walking up the long pier that jutted out into Puget Sound. There, Mount Baker was glistening to the north, the Olympics to the West, the Spokane ferry chugged its way to the Edmonds dock and I stood there in the brisk afternoon air of a blindingly sunny day, knowing that this was one of the best trips I had ever taken in my life.
It wasn’t just the sun or the mountains that made the trip memorable, but the good friends who made me feel so at home, the new and old friends I met at my book signing party, the familiar haunts and the new places I had never been. It was also the things I learned about myself. I have grown up a bit in recent years, not so much that I could ever come close to losing my childlike wonder or Peter Pan approach to life, but enough that I can finally travel with myself and not become tired of the company I keep. And that is a very good thing.
Out on the Treasure Coast, finally getting to the laundry. Oh what? It was already done for me? Hehe!
– Robb