One of the really good things about travel is that as you travel… you learn about yourself. Over the past ten years I’ve traveled in front of many of you all over the world – planned huge trips, done all sorts of amazing things! The trips are almost always exhilarating, always worthwhile, and sometimes… they are tiring too. Usually I can recover from this with an afternoon nap – but what I’m finding on this road trip, and perhaps this was true back in my Montana road trip also but I wasn’t able to put it into words, is that on road trips… every single driving day is exhausting – and without a break they seem to compound on me.
Now maybe I’m just getting older, but I can see it in the way I treat this blog and the conditions I set when I sent out on this road trip. As a reminder, here they all are, minus Tupelo (Which we did! Yay!!):
Find the best cup of boba tea on the route between here and Tennessee (Find one daily)
Stop at every reasonable roadside attraction (Max 4 a Day)
Gas Station Food – Lunch each day is the “best” food from a gas station, as defined by the owners/workers/customers during road days
Interact with, and photograph, any life-sized statues that I come in direct-contact with (i.e. I won’t stop for them, but if they’re at a stop… I’m required to interact)
And here is my pass/fail for today:
Find the best cup of boba tea on the route between here and Tennessee (Find one daily) – FAIL
Stop at every reasonable roadside attraction (Max 4 a Day) – FAIL
Gas Station Food – Lunch each day is the “best” food from a gas station, as defined by the owners/workers/customers during road days – FAIL (sort of)
Interact with, and photograph, any life-sized statues that I come in direct-contact with (i.e. I won’t stop for them, but if they’re at a stop… I’m required to interact) – FAIL
Now… I’ve spoken about the Americana one so we can write that one off perhaps, and unfortunately I didn’t see any other life-sized statues today or I would have interacted with them (those two are kind of tied), but I’ll admit it – I didn’t put any effort into the rest of this list today. I’m tired, just tired, and I can’t wait to pull into the driveway and take some time to start recovering from this trip.
Now, please don’t take that as a negative – this trip has been amazing, and even with all the driving it’s been worth it, but I haven’t been this bone-weary tired in a long time. It’s making me think a lot about my own health, getting older, and how to “keep active” and ensure that I have the tenacity to keep doing big trips and be “in shape” enough to take on big dreams – I think I’ve been lax there, and the result is that I’m not enjoying the second half of this trip as much as I could be because I need to build deeper wells of reserve energy to call upon in times like this.
So I’m about to go to bed – at 7PM Central Time – in hopes of getting a heck of a lot of sleep tonight, but I thought I’d at least share a bit about today before I do:
I did wake up early in St. Louis today, and while waiting for the car valet had a great talk with the doorman at the St. Louis Autograph Collection hotel by Marriott. Seriously if you’re going to St. Louis – consider staying there. Yes, it’s more expensive than some other places… but it’s such a better experience than every other hotel on this trip. It’s the perfect place to relax, an oasis I definitely needed, and I can’t encourage staying there enough!
It took some time to get out of St. Louis this morning due to some road closures and accidents (it rained this morning), and then throughout most of the day my drive was interrupted by construction and congestion. I didn’t really get delayed too much, just annoyed, but as the day wore on my eyelids got heavier and heavier. I pulled over twice to nap – something I hate doing – because I just needed a break or a snack or something to keep the blood pumping. Kansas, while driving through, is very boring (sorry Kansas people!). I guess I’d prefer a boring drive to an exciting one when talking about safety though, so who knows. Maybe I had the best day possible! I suppose that’s something!
I got into Salina around 4pm, and went straight to the hotel. I forewent a number of good restaurants and dinner options for a low-effort, low-key dinner at the hotel… but that’s far from what I got. I had planned, after last weekend, to catch up again with the same bartender as last time. She was nice, seemed quite friendly, but today it was a different person. This happens, but throughout the night I’d learn the other person I spoke to had quit – not only that… but that it had caused drama across the rest of the hotel staff including one day staff who had to now stay late to train the new person. I quite literally got dinner… and a show – a 90’s daytime soap opera as it played out in the bar and hotel lobby. It included a physical fight that had happened days earlier, someone just released from jail, and staff family and friends all showing up to show their support as hotel guests like myself looked on in confusion.
What a day!
Oh and just to add some photos… here’s the Burger King posters from today – it wasn’t at a gas station but it was next to one! I decided not to exit in Kansas City to get bbq – I just wanted to get more miles behind me today.
