Victory Soap v. 2.0

Sorry, didn't mean for this site to go back to low-level blogging. It's just that there's something wrong with me -- either my allergies have decided to go up to phasers-on-kill mode, or I've got some kind of low-level virus that saps my energy and makes me feel like someone punched me several times in the face. I've been taking the fake decongestant because I ran out of the stuff I had to show ID for, and of course it doesn't work. Antihistamines just make me feel woozy. Etc. etc.

Anyway. I need to wrap up the car trip tale, because I said I would. I had left things with me piloting the Spleenmobile into Elizabethtown, which if you look at a map of North Carolina you will see is east of I-95. Exactly the opposite direction to where I wanted to go, which was west of I-95 to US 1. I didn't even remember the I-95 overpass though I must have gone under it at some point. I was a day behind schedule -- I had planned to be in Florida already. Here I was still in North Carolina, not far from where I had started. I still couldn't get the car in first gear without several tries, having to restart the car, etc... I began to wish I'd put a sign in the back window: "First-time Stick Shift Driver, Please Be Patient."

Elizabethtown seemed to have one main road, lined with a small number of stores, a couple of restaurants, etc. There was a worn metal historical sign saying something about the Tories having had something done to them during the Revolutionary War, which was a change from the usual "on this day" Civil War-era stuff you see all over the South. I had decided to stop acting like my father and ask for directions, since using my own brain was apparently not working. I found a cafe that was about to close, and asked how to get to US 1. But when the kind people at the place heard I was going to Florida they all told me that what I really wanted to do was take I-95.

Obviously the fates were against me.

So I decided to just take my chances and take the expressway. At least there would be more than one lane. I could stick to the right lane and let the speed freaks pass me on the others. So off I went, through miles and miles of more charming bucolic countryside, passing the occasional dead deer by the side of the road. And wouldn't you know it, when I got on the expressway it was smooth sailing, as I could stay in fourth gear. Yes, I should have taken I-95 all along. Derr! And in a few hours I saw the "Welcome to South Carolina" sign, and gave a little cheer. Finally!

Everything was fine until I needed to find another hotel. I stayed on the road as long as I could but I didn't want to drive after dark. I'm not night blind but I knew I wouldn't be able to drive all night and didn't really want to have to look for a place in an unfamiliar state at night. Every once in a while the solid wall of pines on either side of the road would give way to signs advertising hotels. So I pulled off an exit which promised about six or seven of the things. But when I got off the exit the only hotel I saw was a Great Western. At least it promised wifi, and had a Denny's. But it was also over $75.00 a night, as I found out when I pulled in and waited for the desk clerk to acknowledge my presence. As I didn't feel like spending so much money just for free wifi and a Denny's, I decided to look for another hotel. I figured I would try east along the road off the exit instead of going any further down the highway. So I drove, and drove, and drove. And the land became flatter, and marshier, and I began to smell salt.

I began to suspect an evil conspiracy to drive me into the ocean's gray, salty maw.

Just when I was about to turn back, I finally saw some hotels. I was exhausted and it was dark by this time, and I had already gone over a couple of bridges -- more on that later. So I pulled in to the nearest hotel and got a room, as well as a long story from the desk clerk -- an older lady from New York State who had moved down to the South because the people were so friendly -- about how all these movies had been filmed in the town I was in, which turned out to be Beaufort. I had to inform her that I had never seen Forest Gump. (By the way, I figured out then why hotel rooms were so expensive -- I was near the beaches, and Parris Island, and towns where famous movies had been filmed. My luck.) The hotel room was still more than I wanted to pay but it was cheaper than the Great Western.

The rest of the trip was without incident. I didn't get lost anymore, and I managed to make it across several scary bridges without having a heart attack. The bridge fear is a new and worrying one -- I have never liked bridges like the Skyway that goes over Tampa Bay, but otherwise bridges didn't used to bother me. I used to drive almost every day across the Intercoastal Waterway bridges when I lived in Miami, and several times across the St. John's River bridge up here. But I have become increasingly fearful and timid -- now instead of merely disliking heights, I become heart-poundingly afraid on stairs, in elevators, on escalators, and now driving across bridges. I put that down to not driving for four years. I really should not have let that go for so long. I feel almost as inexperienced driving as I did when I first started, when I was in my early twenties. That isn't good. Of course, this is the first time I had ever driven a stick for any length of time, so that didn't help.

One more thing: the expressway interchanges in Jacksonville looked like they were designed by M.C. Escher. I almost ended up in Tallahassee. But I made it home, and the cats were fine. So that was one more hurdle over and done with: I had a car. Now I just have to get used to driving it in city traffic.