Martha [lesbian] Living 

Travel 

I love to travel.  I’m just not very good at it.  My joints hurt.  I get constipated.  And when I’m tired or hungry I’m incoherent.  Case in point, there’s a pair of size 9 cotton underpants in the floor of a hotel room in Las Vegas.  During one of my early trips with Girlfriend, we flew into Vegas and stayed a couple of days and then rented a car and drove on to Huntington Beach California to visit my sister. 

Things were kind of new with us.  We checked into a hotel and on the morning of the second day, I noticed a pair of Girlfriend’s underpants (they’d been worn) in the floor over by the dressing table.  I just thought it must be one of those quirky things about her, so I just wrinkled my nose and kept my opinion to myself.  We rented a car and started out across the Mohave Desert.  The drive was pretty quiet for a while and then we needed gas.  I pulled into one of those places that say “Last Gas for 300 Miles” and pulled up to the pump.  I think the price was about $1.69 a gallon.  Girlfriend said, “Pull back onto the road.  I won’t pay this much for gas.”  I said, “Do you want to run out of gas in the damn desert?”  She said, “I WON’T pay this much for gas.”  I said, “I’ll pay for the <bleeping> gas.”  So that was settled. 

When we got to California, I was telling my sister about the trip.  Maybe I was griping a little.  So in her defense Girlfriend says, “She left her underpants in the floor at Vegas.”  I say, “I thought those were your underpants.  I’ve been wondering what kind of woman you are.”  All these years later we are still arguing about those underpants.  

One Valentines Day Girlfriend got me a card.  When she handed it to me she said, “Try to think about our first trip to Key West.”  So, I’m hoping as I rip open the envelope that there are a couple of plane tickets in the card.  Nada.  On the front of the card is a cupid splat against the radiator of a Mac Truck.  And I laughed as I remembered all of the road kill on that trip.  Everything was new for us.  There’s nothing like driving for thirty hours together to get to know someone.  South of the Mason/Dixon Line I noticed that they never clean up their road kill.  So I said, “Gee, they sure have a lot of road kill in the south.”  She looked at me crazed and said, “Don’t talk about it!”  Of course, the more I tried not to talk about it the more I noticed it and the bigger this got in my head.  I started classifying it: household pet, rodent, wild animal, unidentifiable. . . .Then south of Miami where we were looking for Route 1, and I saw this big brown thing with one leg sticking up in the air.  I just blurted it out, not thinking, “My God, is that a kangaroo?”  She glared at me.  She may have snarled.  When we drove over Deer Island they actually have a chalkboard with the number of deer hit so far that year.  It was February and the number was eleven. 

After we got to Key West and got some rest, we decided to take one of those tram rides around the island.  We were coming around a corner, looking at the gingerbread architecture when our tram hit a dog.  We were the only ones in the tram who didn’t have something to say about that.  Anyway, we always counted that vacation as having a theme.  And she remembered it on Valentines Day. It wasn’t that trip, but the next when I fell asleep driving in the mountains around Chattanooga.  I heard her say, “Martha!”  And I opened my eyes and saw we were headed off the edge of the mountain.  I swerved the car and straightened it out.   She asked if I wanted her to drive.  But to tell the truth that woke me up.  So I kept driving.  She couldn’t sleep after that either. 

Then on the way home we were on the Florida turnpike, and I was sleeping while she drove.  I rolled my head to one side and opened my eyes and saw a tractor tire right in our lane about 50 feet ahead.  I looked at her.  She didn’t seem to see it.  I looked back at the road; we were getting closer.  Finally, I reached and grabbed the steering wheel and turned it quickly to avoid a crash.  I heard horns blowing all around us, and tires screeching.  While Girlfriend fought for control of the car and tried to avoid a collision, I realized that I had been dreaming.  There was nothing in the road in front of us.  Even though I apologized a thousand times, I feel like she still holds that against me. 

Our trips are always good for a story.  There was the winter we accidentally went to Mardi gras.  I just wanted to stop in New Orleans and shop at the French Market.  Out of 52 weeks in the year, it happened to be Mardi gras.  So we spent the day walking around, and that night when we started to go back to the car we forgot where we had parked it.  Of course, all the parking lots looked alike.  I think you’re supposed to remember your lot letter.      

 For several years we’ve not taken a big trip.  I missed the traveling.  The other day Girlfriend told me that she’s going be retiring soon, and she said we would take a long trip afterward.  I am thrilled.  I just hope that I’ve gotten better at it.  At least after all these years, we’ve come to recognize each other’s underpants.