"Wait here baby, I'll go check us in," I whispered to Ann, who was awake, but a still little groggy.
"Okay," she said softly as she smiled at me, her eyes open but glassy.
Ann had slept the vast majority of our trip from Colorado to Omaha. She was awake when we left Loveland, but she drifted off about a half hour into the trip. I roused her at the state line so we could take the now obligatory pictures by the roadside sign welcoming us to Nebraska. And that was interesting, because even though she was tired, she was surprising energetic while the camera was on her naked body. She did her poses perfectly, flirting with me through the lens.
Yet once we were back at the car, and she was putting on her clothes, Ann asked if she continue her nap. And I didn't have a problem with that...I could see the fatigue that she was feeling wash back over her body once I'd put away the camera. She'd only asked for another hour to sleep, and she said she'd drive the rest of the way once she woke up. But I knew she was exhausted. She had to be after what I had put her through the night before at the cabin in Estes Park. It was a wonderful, memorable night, but it took its toll on Ann physically...and mentally. So much so that her body was telling her to shut down and recharge.
She'd woken up just once between the state line west of North Platte, Nebraska, and the point just outside of Omaha where we'd be staying for the night. I had pulled off the interstate for gas, and Ann felt the car stop. She shuffled inside the convenience store part of the gas station to pee. When she came back out, I saw her eyes, still just half open. I nodded toward the passenger side of the car, letting her know it was okay for her to get in on that side. She was back asleep before I finished navigating the onramp back onto the interstate.
Ann woke up for good when we were a little more than halfway between Lincoln and our final destination of Omaha. We were traveling in the left hand lane, heading northeast along I-80, and we'd been experiencing high winds for hours as we headed dead east. But now that we'd turned more toward the north, those gusts had become crosswinds. Most of them weren't a problem...the car was packed, and that weighed it down a little. Still, I had both hands on the steering wheel at that point, just to be safe.
We got hit with a sudden gust that had to be close to 50 miles per hour, hitting the side of the little Honda Civic, and pushing us over the centerline between lanes. It felt more like strong turbulence in an airplane, pushing us around with a heavy jolt. Fortunately, there were no cars on the other lane, and I was able to hold the car stable and bring it back to our side of the road smoothly. But it still rocked the car hard enough that it woke Ann up, startled and confused.
"What was THAT?" she said at the time, suddenly scared and gasping for air.
I responded by putting my hand on her thigh for a second, saying, "It's okay, babe. It's gotten really windy, and we just got hit by a gust, that's all. Don't worry...we're going to be getting off the interstate really soon. We're almost there." Then I put my hand back on the wheel in case we got another gust of wind.
When I had said that to Ann she got a bewildered look on her face...but then again, she was still in that foggy state when you wake up from a deep sleep. She didn't think when I'd said that we were 'almost there', that I meant we were almost to where we were going to be spending the night. She thought I was talking about a place to eat lunch. But lunchtime would have been 5 to 6 hours before. I hadn't bothered to stop, because Ann was sleeping, and I'd eaten such a huge breakfast that I wasn't really hungry. Instead, I just kept driving, making good time along the way.
I could tell Ann was confused, but she just needed time to wake up. Having slept so long, and not knowing it, was making it difficult for her to adjust to. Heck, she was having a hard enough time just sitting up straight. If I didn't know better, I would have thought she was a little inebriated. But this was just one of those times where she needed a moment, so she sat still, not saying anything. She was letting things come to her, sitting still with her eyes open as her systems sort of rebooted.
~*~*~*~*~*~
We'd just pulled under the awning of the hotel we'd be staying at for the night. It wasn't a mainstream chain hotel. This was a local one, and it appeared to be a rather nice one at that. It wasn't big, and it wasn't grand. It was modest and comfortable. And I wondered how Nancy and Tina found it.
Telling Ann I was going to check in, I walked inside the small lobby towards the front desk. A young guy who looked to be in his mid 20's was behind the counter, dutifully doing some mundane task that I'm sure was important only to his boss. He looked up as he heard the door, and gave me a warm, polite smile as I approached the counter.
"Welcome sir, how may I help you?" he asked, which caught me by surprise. Not that he asked...it was more of how he asked; his voice thick with a British accent. And that was not something I had expected in the middle of Nebraska.
"I have a reservation, under the name Thomas."
"Ah yes, Mr. Thomas. We've been expecting you."
"Yeah...I get that a lot," I said with a laugh, thinking about how that was now becoming an expected line every time I went someplace. From having it said to Tina and I several times on the trip that Ann had set up for us, to now having that reversed a little as it happening to me and Ann on the adventure Tina was directing...it seemed normal to hear it.
But Charles, the manager on duty, at least, according to his nametag, didn't know that. He heard my reply, and said, "Pardon me, sir?"
"Nothing...I just seem to have a lot of people expecting me, that's all."
"Oh...on your holiday. Yes, I would imagine you have. Miss Roberts seems to be quite the travel secretary...very precise with her details."
"Miss Roberts? Oh, you mean Tina?"
"Yes sir. As I said, she's quite the taskmaster when it comes to details. But I trust you'll find that we've been able to accommodate everything she's requested for you and Miss Franklin to enjoy your stay here in Omaha."
I smiled, letting out a little chuckle, which caused Charles to give me an odd smile in return. "Sorry...Charles," I said as I looked at his nametag again to make sure he knew how I knew his name. "I just didn't expect someone with your accent...and when you said 'here in Omaha'...well, it kind of hit me funny."
"Quite all right, Mr. Thomas. I seem to get THAT quite a lot," he said in good humor.
"You can call me Neil," I said, trying to appear more gracious than I had been, what with the laughter and all.
He handed me the check in paper, and handed me a pen. "Sign and date at the bottom, Neil."
I scribbled my signature, and he filed the paperwork and reached into a cabinet and handed me a key. I got a glimpse inside it when he opened the doors, and there were only two keys left inside, the vast majority of the little pegs being empty.
"Looks like you have a full house tonight," I said as he handed it to me.
"There's a rodeo in town. Most of the inns are booked full, including ours."
I couldn't help but snicker when he said 'rodeo' and he smiled. "I appear to amuse you."
"I'm so sorry, Charles. It's just a little surreal. But that was pretty rude of me."
