Traveling With Menopause

Don’t do it.

Ok, fine, if you have to, but first let me tell you a story…

Two humans and two cats decided to take a three-week tour of the US on our way to Canada to spend a year with our best friends. We thought if we liked it, we might stay awhile, but let’s get there first.

Let’s start by packing. Oh my. Pack, unpack, cry, repack, unpack, cry. Pack again. Cry. How the fuck am I going to do this? Cat’s have accidents, some hotels on the road don’t have decent laundry (yea, I’m picky, so what?), you spill on the road, I sweat.

Extras of extras were necessary.

We drive a Honda CRV, so it was kind of spacious. Kind of. When you travel with two cats and a menopausal woman, you had best not need anything for yourself. The cat’s food alone took up a whole suitcase. Then they had their pens, two sets of carriers, litter boxes…my menopausal life? One whole suitcase as well. Everything must also ALWAYS be accessible.

How about using the bathroom on the road? Stopping incessantly is required. Sometimes we would have to drive for more than twenty minutes to find a public one; that worked that was clean. It always depended on the city.

There are so many unknowns when taking on a travel tour like this. Pet friendly is not always cat friendly, so we’d have to find a new hotel at the last minute while I tried to get my money back (I did), and every fucking time we’d check in, I’d have a hot flash at the desk. In Montana, it was freezing outside, and I walked in sweating profusely. Then off to the room, set up the cats, and fall into bed. And sweat some more.

Hotel beds suck, even in the best of places, when you have hot flashes because of menopause. Doesn’t everything make you itch? No, it’s not bed bugs, ladies, it’s sweating, drying off, and sweating again without the benefit of being able to stand in a shower all day long.

Now my husband is a saint regarding my menopause. The car’s AC died as we were leaving an 80-degree-plus day in Florida, and I was bloody miserable, and my poor hubby got the brunt. The temperature outside settled down in the Carolinas. Then we hit snow and freezing temperatures, and I’ve got the windows down. Don’t worry; the cats were covered, and the window didn’t stay down long.

We finally landed in Canada, where we only stayed for three and a half weeks – different story, different day – with our BFFs. Miss May has hot flashes too, but they do not appear to torment her as much as me, and it always feels like an imposition when you are in someone else’s domain, and you turn down the temp when they aren’t looking. A huge bonus was that our room had its own thermostat. Still, the hubby suffered through cold, cold nights when he should have been warm. My bad.

At the end of this road trip lay California, where we were stuck for three-plus weeks while we made provisions for the cats to get to Hawaii. Another hotel with crappy AC. Trust me, they do not clean them as they should. Dirty carpets, scratchy towels, and lousy sheets, Oh My! Actually, every 5th towel we received was soft.

Hard beds, soft beds, and beds that should have been thrown out in the 1980s.

The beds could have been made of clouds, and I would have found them uncomfortable, hence why no hotel was mentioned in the piece; it may not have been their fault. The benefit of the doubt and all.

Let me say that plans go awry, like three weeks turning into eight, and you need to be prepared. I overpacked and at least had most of what a person with severe hot flashes could need. I did run out of chocolate, but Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s had what I craved.

We also bought extra storage for the roof, and that was quite lucky because we needed it…for all of hubby’s stuff, of course.

If you ever meet my soulmate in person, for the love of Pete, buy him a drink. He likes Tito’s on the rocks or with a real Coke.

Safe and comfy traveling, ladies.