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 Husbands
and wives have different expectations when embarking on trips
together. For
instance, when my husband suggested last year that we take a
road trip to go see Niagara Falls, I thought that meant we were
actually going to see Niagara Falls.
Technically
I guess you could argue, as my husband does to this day, that
we did see the falls. Sure - from our hotel room. Twenty-three
floors up. In the dark. In the rain. With pink light shining
on them. Until the lights went off ten minutes after we arrived
in our room.
The
next morning we woke early, (we were on a "schedule")
and it was still raining, impeding my bird's eye view of the
falls. But, no worries, I would be standing right next to them
shortly, taking pictures, and having ours taken together as
everyone does who visits Niagra Falls.
As
we pulled out of the hotel parking lot, I noticed my husband
turned left, the opposite direction from the falls. Probably
a one-way street, I reasoned. As he revved the car engine up
the on-ramp to the freeway, a strange sensation crept over me.
And although all of the traffic signs were in French, I somehow
knew we weren't headed towards the falls.
"I
thought we were going to go see the falls," I commented,
curtly, as we sailed down the freeway heading the opposite direction
of the falls.
My
husband looked at me incredulously and replied, "We did
see the falls."
I
looked back incredulously and said, "No we didn't."
He
looked back at me even more incredulously and countered, "Yes
we did. We saw them from the room."
Needless
to say, we were both incredulous.
And
that, dear reader, describes the sum total of my trip to Niagara
Falls. If I were a grade school student returning from summer
vacation, I wouldn't have enough material to write a one-page
theme.
"I
thought we were going to go down to the falls," I emphasized
to my husband two hundred miles later.
And
therein lies the rub. The "I thought" part. When traveling
with a man, you must get everything in writing, have an attorney
look I over, and don't close on the deal until your travel agent
reads the fine print.
"We
can see them next time," my husband offered as we whizzed
past a blur of what appeared to be the province Ontario. "We're
on a tight schedule."
This
is the other thing about guys - a vacation is not a vacation
unless you keep moving.
My
friend, Miriam, tells of the time she and her husband were on
a road trip out west and she spotted a large jewelry store along
the freeway and told her husband she would like to stop there.
"And
there he went, " she said, (incredulously of course), "whizzing
right on by! Can you believe that?"
Oh,
yes, Miriam, I can.
And
can you believe that my husband actually agreed to visit poet
Robert Frost's Place in New Hampshire several days later during
that same trip? I actually have pictures of him standing among
the dozens of poems nailed to the trees along the Poetry Trail.
He doesn't look happy.
Next
time maybe he'll take me to see the falls, like he promised.
I'll
have my lawyer call his lawyer.
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