GROGGILY YOURS

1 October 2001
12:30 a.m.

Boy, I sure don't know what happened last night. I sat down at about 6:30 to look through the huge stack of catalogs that came in while we were gone (thank goodness I put myself on one of those "don't send me your catalogs ever, ever again" lists or I hate to think what the stack would be like!)

I had looked through about five of them and they were so exciting, that I dozed off. At 8, Walt shook me to ask what we were going to have for dinner. I had actually planned to cook chicken burritos, but muttered something about leftover roast beef and I tried to wake up, but I just could not get my eyes to open. He said he'd fix himself something. I went back to sleep.

Next thing I know it's midnight and I've slept for five hours. I don't know if I'll be able to get back to sleep now, actually. Five hours is about a normal night for me. But I thought I'd do a journal entry and then try it again.

I suppose what my body is doing is making up for all the sleep I didn't get on the trip.

I love traveling. I love being new places, seeing new things, even—after a day or two—doing all that walking.

The thing I hate about traveling is sleeping in strange places.

We actually had pretty nice accommodations. I loved the B&B in Stromness, for example. But I simply cannot sleep. All I have to do is lie down and my back starts giving me fits. Or my leg aches. Or something else. I sleep best half sitting up, so we always get as many pillows as possible and I try propping myself up, but that doesn't work either. I may get 3 hours sleep, but it's generally in fits and starts.

At home, I can turn on the television and just zone out until sleep finally comes and then I sleep well in my reclining chair. But I don't have that luxury in a hotel. I spent many a night in the last few weeks just sitting in a dark room waiting until it was late enough that I could start making noise that might wake Walt up. Some nights I sat in a dark room for four hours, doing nothing but thinking and wishing I could sleep.

In some places, I can go into the bathroom and read, but for some reason this didn't work in most of the places where we stayed. In one place the light was too dim. In others, I couldn't find a comfortable place to sit, and some nights I just didn't feel like it.

Our last night, in Edinburgh, was the worst. Maybe it was eagerness to get home, or maybe it was concern about the flight. Or maybe, because we had to leave so early (the cab came for us at 6 a.m.), I was concerned about waking up in time (funny thought!), but I went to sleep at 11 or so and was awake every single hour until I finally gave up at 3:30 or 4 and went into the bathroom. They had a tub in this hotel and it had a wide ledge at the back of it, so I could sit on the ledge and had a nice backrest with the wall there, and I was able to read for 2½ hours until the alarm finally went off and Walt woke up.

(yes, I was so bored in that time that I actually took my own picture)

The night we got home was the first night I'd had six hours of solid sleep in 2+ weeks. And I've slept like a log every night since. I don't know what the rest of tonight is going to be like. I've already had a "full night" of sleep...and it's just about the time I'm normally going to sleep.