Towels, Pillows, and Light Bulbs

Every time I travel, I hope to learn a little bit about the places we go, but I generally learn a little bit about myself as well. Because I’m married to an IBMer, we use their term of CPI (Continual Process Improvement) as we travel. I like to make notes before we’re even done with the trip, while each success and each bump are fresh in my mind. I try to incorporate my notes in some meaningful way into the plans for next trip we take. On this trip, one of the most interesting things we discovered was that R.J.’s tablet has GPS. (Don’t laugh.) We didn’t discover this until almost the end of our trip, and it was a complete surprise. (This was his mom’s tablet, and although we purchased it for her, GPS wasn’t a feature she needed and wasn’t one we were looking for when we bought the tablet.) R.J. downloaded Google Maps and we had it pulled up to follow along as we went to a state park. He had turned off all wireless and Bluetooth interfaces, so we were very surprised to find the arrow on the map moving right along with us. We have never owned a GPS device and have traditionally traveled only with paper maps. On this particular side trip, it was crazy-helpful to have a GPS. It was also a little startling when “she” spoke to give us directions. It was easy to forget we had a “third person” in our car with us. It is good to know that we have help in future trips, should we need it, but we will still travel with paper maps. I like them.

Traveling, and staying in some wonderful Airbnb places, may end up costing us some money at home. For one thing, I realized we have inferior towels. I have always looked for bargain towels and felt pretty proud about not spending much money and then making them last forever (well-past the “looking tacky” stage in their lives). We were married almost 34 years ago, and I still have one set of towels that we received as a wedding gift. Yes, I do. They don’t match anything, so we don’t use them often, but we definitely take them on vacation with us and do still use them at home sometimes. Believe me when I say that I had no idea what a difference Egyptian cotton could make in a towel. Just wow. Now that I do know, I covet those over-sized, thirsty towels – big time. Sigh. I also discovered that we have pathetic pillows at home. The places we stayed had a wide variety of pillow selection, often multiple kinds of pillows on one bed. We were able to sample pillows like we have never done before: foam pillows, down pillows, and super-crazy-squishy-synthetic-fiber pillows. Again, WOW! People know how to make amazing pillows. Also, my squished-up, lumpy, mostly-dead, 15-year-old pillow deserves a proper burial. I never thought to buy a pillow or to put it on a wish list. It’s just there and I sleep on it. Well, not any more. Now I know what I’m missing!

I did discover one area where I am happy with our inferior products at home, though. We have been thinking about replacing our bathroom light fixture for quite some time; therefore, I have not purchased any new bulbs for it. It takes the over-sized kind. We are down to one light bulb out of six working, along with the overhead light in the bathroom. The one light bulb isn’t even on my side of the mirror, and I was thinking about complaining about that BEFORE our trip. Now I’m not so sure I even want to replace the fixture. It turns out that when I have a fabulous light fixture with, say, ALL of its light bulbs working, I can see every wrinkle and every freckle on my face. I’m not crazy about that. I know it’s not the light bulbs’ fault (there’s only so much a light bulb can do), but I’ll stick to my mood-lit bathroom for now. I only wear makeup on rare occasions, and that’s not going to change, but can we all make a pact to tone down the intensity of the bathroom bulb? Who needs all that revealing?

I probably should end this blog with a quote on contentment or something inspiring like that. You know what? I’m not going to do that. For me, it’s not about being content. My stuff isn’t that great, because I don’t spend much money on it, and I’m really OK with that. But it IS fun to experience luxury once in a while. Travel does that for me. It gives me highs and lows that life at home does not. It’s wonderful, and I love it. So I’m ending with a travel quote instead. “On the road again, I just can’t wait to get on the road again….” Adventure awaits. J