Darrell hates to travel. Sometimes he likes the actual vacation and extra time to spend doing what you want, but he hates the planning, the traveling, and most often would just prefer to be at home. He avoids business trips, lets me plan any actual vacations (which are few and far between), and is even ok with me traveling alone to get my travel fix (I love to travel!).
So, maybe you've guessed, but he is NOT fun to travel with.
Example 1: He recently got a new car, which he does about every 5-6 years - many times these are used cars that are "new" to him; he just likes a change and different vehicle to tinker with. Anyway, this new vehicle has very good gas mileage, which is a big part of what convinced me that getting it was a good idea, and convinced us both that we should try to make it the car we travel with, even though it's much smaller than we're used to. But, his new rule for this brand new vehicle is that we can't eat in it, at all, even if we are all stuck in it for 16 1/2 hours driving home from Florida. The kids can have water, us adults are allowed caffeinated drinks as well to keep us awake while driving. Maybe I should mention that we did stop for three meals and a snack, but of course they had to be eaten outside of the car. A friend of mine said she would have just gone off on him over this, that it was completely unreasonable. The kids and I went along with it, although we did complain some now and then. He does at least deserve that. And I think I'll be scheduling a tour for him of every other parent's car in the neighborhood to prove to him that I don't really let my car get that messy and out of hand the way he seems to think I do. But, I digress. I didn't "go off" on him. He's weird, yes, but so am I and he puts up with my weirdness pretty well.
Example 2: He HATES to sit in traffic. So, on the way back we took a huge detour on side roads when the interstate was backed up. We didn't get anywhere any faster than those who stayed on the interstate did - we even saw some of the same vehicles when we got back on the interstate. But believe me when I say that Darrell stayed much more calm because we could keep moving, even if it was fairly slow and a further distance on side roads. We even got to see "Beautiful Butts County, Georgia". You can find images of their water tower on Google. So, the side trip was entertaining, even if it cost us some time.
Example 3: He doesn't like my driving. More specifically, he doesn't much like anyone's driving but his own. He seems to tolerate his father's driving ok, and he can handle short distances with friends he doesn't want to offend. However, he's perfectly fine telling me how to drive from the passenger seat. We used to get into huge arguments over this, but now we have a strategy that works great. He drives when we're together. If he's too tired to drive, I take a shift, but he has to close his eyes and not remark about my driving. If he starts remarking about my driving, we pull over to the side of the road and he gets to drive again. I like reading on my Kindle or playing with my phone in the passenger seat anyway, so this works great. I'm not sure if he's going to be able to handle teaching the kids to drive, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I'm sure there's more, but three examples is enough for now, right? We actually get along really well during the portion of the vacation we're not traveling. Darrell usually even likes it while we're there. I remember the first time we went to Disney World together (before kids), and he seriously did not want to leave to go home. This was after he complained for months about going to Disney, spending all that money on a vacation that just wouldn't last the way buying something would, knowing that it would rain every day in Florida (he hadn't yet been there), etc. He loved it. And I love him, so much so that I haven't killed him yet ; )
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