Travel can mean tired

As I spend my weekend resting, feeling rather exhausted I think back to some of the trips I took and how many levels of tired I experienced while on those journeys. There were many overnight or late night journeys to and from California. Some where I spent the trip in a sleep deprived daze, others where sleeping in the car and driving in shifts were necessary.

I think back fondly to three specific tired levels that I experienced, unintentionally, but nevertheless they were certainly unique. The first was the dazed and confused, this was a trip I took a red eye flight to Michigan to visit a friend and some family over a weekend. The time change had me landing in Detroit at 6 AM EST (3 AM Mountain Standard). I hadn't slept at all during the night and by the time I got my car rental I was running purely on caffeine. I'm pretty sure that weekend my body makeup was 90% water and 10% caffeine. By the end of my first full day, I was dazed, slightly confused in getting around and ever so happy to settle into bed that night.

The second journey was my road trip last year, my first full day was about 8 hours of driving from Phoenix, AZ to Fresno, CA. The day was one of adventure and I was excited and nervous to be on the trip on my own. That first day I was dragging by about 3pm and I had several hours ahead yet. I found a little hole in the wall donut shop just north of L.A. Knowing that those places often had the best coffee, I made a beeline for that shop. The lady running the shop was Filipino and absolutely fabulous! She was so friendly, cheerful, and insisted I take two donut holes (on the house) to go with my coffee. I was so enchanted by this experience, I told the woman about my plans and how I was passing through and asked to take a picture of her for my memories. She laughed, patted her hair, and shaking her head saying "Not today, I'm not dressed for picture. You come back tomorrow." It was such a fun few moments of my trip but certainly a pick-me-up on the long journey. By the time I reached Fresno that night it was exhilarated exhaustion. When the concierge told me I had an upgrade room with a hot tub and that delivery for dinner was an option I nearly climbed over the check-in counter and planted a kiss on his cheek. I barely made it into the room and collapsed. Excited I had made it, exhausted from the hours of travel but so happy to be at my first stop.

The third journey was to Ireland. Simply put, 13 hours of travel and 27 hours of awake time will give even the most seasoned traveler a cold medicine head feeling. The first day in Ireland was easy. I was running on fumes and caffeine (this sounds similar to the last two trips) but I was so excited to be in Ireland and determined to get on their time schedule I refused to let myself or mom sleep until we hit a normal bedtime. We zipped through Dublin, sleep deprived, lost and confused, on the wrong side of the road and the wrong side of the car. The GPS was no help and spent an hour hunting for a B&B that was supposed to be a 10 minute drive from the airport. It was a great first day, lunch in a small cafe up the road from the B&B (thank God our host dropped us off there) and then we wandered back hitting a small grocery store nearby on the way for some fresh fruit to snack on later that evening. We made it to a normal bedtime before collapsing into bed that night. The next day is when it hit. A cold-medicine like head that couldn't be beat. I was so proud of us when we woke at a normal time and had breakfast with the rest of the guests. After breakfast we collapsed. We had to rest and take a nap but I remember I could barely relax, I was in Dublin, there was so much to see and I was running out of time. I gave up trying to sleep after an hour and up we were out to explore Dublin. That day was a haze but was amazing to experience. We rode a double-deck bus, hit a gift shop that screamed TOURIST SHOP and picked up just about everything we wanted to by for our friends and family. We explored and somehow grabbed the wrong bus to get back to the B&B and end up about 2-3 miles north of the B&B. Oops. Sleep deprivation did not work well for us that day. On a fun turn of events though, we grabbed a taxi back to the B&B and had a lovely conversation with the cab driver. That night as we collapsed into our beds exhaustion once again overtook us. We both slept well that night, a dreamed, hoping that we'd wake feeling a little more normal the next day.