Since we are getting closer to celebrating our 15th anniversary, it’s pretty obvious my wife and I are pretty compatible.
We do have a lot of the same interests, but just enough different ones to give each of us an opportunity to have some alone time. But when we went on our recent trip to Washington, D.C., I think I discovered our greatest compatibility.
We really complement each other well when planning and executing a trip. It’s almost scary.
The thing that amazed me the most was that we didn’t really sit down and organize this one like we usually do. I think I have takes our individual traveling skills for granted over the years.
We left on a Friday morning, but I didn’t see Maria almost the entire week prior. She and Bridget went to visit friends, leaving me alone to fend for myself.
They originally planned to come home on Wednesday so we had time to get ready and all that stuff, but they ended up staying an extra day. I never doubted it would affect our plans.
I had already secured a nice hotel, and we already had plans to visit a historic site on the way to the city. We had plenty of time to check the guidebook for Saturday tourist ideas and really didn’t have to worry about anything until we needed to find a place to eat on Friday night.
Well, except for finding the hotel.
This is where my true traveling skill comes into play. I can book a mean hotel, but I’m even better trying to drive around a city without looking like a tourist.
Directions printed from the Internet can only do so much. You have to appreciate and understand the nuances of city traffic to arrive at your destination without driving extra slow or stopping to read street signs.
The most important part of this process is a belief that you can always get back to where you came from. Most cities have logical traffic patterns so you can easily double back if you miss your destination.
That’s true even in a city like Washington, where the planners came up with the goofy directional system as well as those annoying diagonal streets. You might end up heading southwest instead of northeast, but that’s easily corrected.
This isn’t a solo effort though. No ninja vacation driver can complete the task without an attentive navigator. Maria fills this role to perfection. Don’t tell the driver they need to turn when the street is coming up. Once they complete a turn, let them know the next thing they are looking for right away and get out of the way.
In other words, trust your driver. Because even if he or she screws up, there’s always that ability to get back to where you came from. You might just need a turn executed at the last second to accomplish this.
That means you can’t get jumpy in the passenger seat. If you have a driver who grew up driving around cities, just sit back, dig your fingernails into the armrest and trust that you will end up at your destination in one piece.