Travels with The Rayman

Do you ever get that tired feeling?  Worn out?  Bang, bang, bang go the cylinders.  Then, then poof.  The wall get hits.  Sapped is another great descriptor.  Just sapped of all energy and get-up-and-go.

That is exactly the state I find myself in this afternoon as I sit in the dappled shade of some kind of leafy green tree that provides a canopy over The Dog House.  And I’m inside sitting at the kitchen table, for lack of a better description for a table in an RV.  The shade is welcomed as it is about 100 degrees outside right now…in the shade.  This old girl struggles to maintain her up-rightedness in the heat.  It doesn’t as much sap me as zap me.  Stepping outside is akin to stepping into an oven.  Still, hot, heat.  It reminds me of my youth growing up in Paso Robles.  My grandmother was a woman that hated to pay for utilities.  So, rather than turn on the swamp cooler that was mounted in one of the windows in living room/dining room, she would close all the Venitian blinds (that is what they called them way back when) and hunker down for the heat.  It was not beneath my dignity as a teenager to beg her to let me plug in the cooler.  Her name was Birdie and she was aptly named as she was tough as an old bird.  About the only time I remember her complaining about the heat was when grandpa insisted she heat his dinner plates in a warm oven..  Oh, the stories I have regarding my grandmother.  And her plight in life. 

But I digress.

My question is this.  Do you ever yell at your mate/spouse?  I inquire because we yelled at each other last night and I wonder if we are the only ones that exhibit this kind of behavior.  And it happened because we were both tired/frazzled, and driving the RV north on I-5.  First let me set the scene.  It was hot.  The sun was setting.  Virtually every truck in America was on that freeway with us.  And I would be remiss if I failed to mention that the freeway’s right lane is ghastly with huge potholes to be dodged, crazy drivers to avoid, enormous dips before and after the bridges that dot that straight-as-an-arrow freeway.  It was choked with vehicles as it was a Friday night and people were rushing to get where they were going.  We, however, were not in a rush because the speed limit for the doghouse towing our Zoomobile is 55 mph.  At that speed we passed exactly one old car that was cruising down the road at a whopping 50 mph.  We even observed one fellow in an SUV, pass on the right shoulder a semi-truck so anxious was he to get where he was going…and he did this daring maneuver going about 75 mph.  We were the turtles.  He was the hare. 

Again, I digress.

As I was saying, the driving was hard.  The day was long.  I was driving.  Rayman was riding shotgun with his cell phone in hand using the app that was to lead us to the KOA RV park in Los Banos, CA.  Oh, how I longed to exit I-5.  When he finally signaled that I should take the next exit, I enthusiastically replied, “YES!”.  And as soon the ssssssss sound parted my lips, he said, “What the hell?  This is the wrong exit.”  That was the first time I lost my cool.  “What”  “What are you doing?”, I shouted.    He said, “Turn right, this is not the right exit, the phone was wrong!”.    “What?”, I spit out. 

“Turn right, we have to go 3 miles to turn around.”,  Rayman expounded, and about that same time I turned right and there was a turnaround place that I’m guessing is for cops.  It was not designed to handle a 33 foot long RV, a 10 ft, long car and the 4 yards between them.  My turn elicited horns honking is all I’m saying.  However, it did save us from a 6 mile mistake.  As I continued to complain, Rayman told me to take the next exit.  Would this be right?  Who knows?  I didn’t know.  Did Siri know?  Who knows?  Did the Waze app know?  Lord only knows.  After I exited the next exit, I had to go left.  And after I made the turn, Rayman copped to not knowing if were where we suppose to be to find one KOA RV Resort.  So I did what any enraged motorist would do.  I pulled over to the side of the road refusing to drive until I could satisfy myself that we were on the right path.  The heat, it kept rising.  Rayman, having his skills criticized was now yelling.  I was yelling having completely lost any semblance of decorum or good humor. 

So, back to my original question.  Do you ever yell at your spouse/mate?  God, I hope we’re not the only ones. 

Epilogue.  We were on the right road.  We pulled into the RV park about 9 p.m.  We could not see where were going to be parked based on a map they left for us in an envelop because the office personnel was long gone.  We roamed the park making a spectacle of ourselves as it is hard to disguise the fact you are lost in an RV park as you dirive up and down, clipping trees, almost taking out a fence as you do so.  We also parked in the wrong space and I had to drive the Dog House around again to get to the space next door. 

We were so spent, we didn’t even bother extending the main slide.  After putting a few things away, we kissed and made up and threw ourselves into bed.  God, it was a long, trying day.