Bayside

I'm not feeling too bad despite second 10,000+ days in 3. I'm definitely improved. Will the gain disappear when I settle in, like the gain in the last summer has? I will have to wait and see.That is at least 3 months away for now. And my task, for now, is to avoid post-exertional sickness.

We took QM5 bus to Bayside this morning. It conveniently departed right in front of the building, and dropped us just a block from our destination restaurant 55 minutes away. How lucky is that? The express bus fare was $6.25 and didn't take our monthly pass. The bus driver who just woke up from napping didn't stop us when we used our pass. The driver on the way back did, but we didn't have $6.25 in coins and he let us ride for free. If I knew, I would've taken my car instead. Anyway, it became a free trip for us. How lucky is that?

You take bus, and you realize how big Queens is, spanning multitude of neighborhood. Forest Hills, Fresh Meadows, Bayside. And others along Union Tpike are all working class neighborhoods with working class stores lining main streets. I'm sure housing is much cheaper there too. The drawback is the train services end well before Bayside and you have to rely on less reliable bus services to connect to Manhattan in large swaths of eastern Queens.

I'm finishing today with less than 4,000 steps. A well deserved respite.

9/11 Memorial

Are we really little Eichmans, Professor Churchill?

People are chatting and snapping away as if they are on a picnic. This is the ground where people, some holding hands and some alone, jumped off and splattered. Can't you see the blood stains? Severed body parts? The planes still fly  past the World Trade Center, just not through it this time. I startle the same.

I was here decades before. I climbed up one of the towers, leaned onto the narrow window between the vertical combs that formed exoskeleton of the building and looked down. People and yellow cabs milled around below like ants. 1362 feet below to be exact. How did it feel to jump?

Hate begets hate. All the imperialism we practiced in the Middle East came back home to roost on that day. Then we went in, in the name of WMD and "almighty's gift to humanity" and killed half a million of wrong people. It was a revenge killing. It was our Allahu Akbar. The image of an Iraqi mother with a severed child in her arms and two big puddles on her face is seared in my memory just like people falling from the sky. After 8 years of closing the wounds and making peace best we can, we have another a-hole in the White House. Maybe we should just consider ourselves lucky that the mental one is only an a-hole, not an ideologue.

Anyhoo, I ended up with another 11,000 step day. I was still tired this morning even after a day of rest, thanks to the 12,500 step day on Friday in Flushing and Upper West Side. I'll have to take another day off tomorrow. Except that we are meeting my sister and her family for lunch in Bayside, way past Flushing. I'm just thankful that I recover, at least partially, after sleep these days.

Upper West Side

The deal on the studio in Union Square didn't work out. The girl, like a typical Korean female, was overly possessive of her apartment and belongings. You can't house-sit for such people. Not when you are paying $3000 for the privilege.

So we went out again. (To tell the truth, I've been continuing the search since the deal was shaky with an intention to ditch it if I find a suitable substitute). After checking out a share arrangement at 49th and 9th ave, we went up to 112th Ave right below Columbia university. It turned out that the unit was owned by the university and the student occupants are going away for the summer. And one of the occupants were subletting, with permission of the University. It was a rather large 2ba/2br apartment with open view out the window on the 10th floor. To boot, it was a kick-ass neighborhood. It is a college town and with lots of shops and restaurants on Broadway. A high class version of the UT Austin's streets, if you will. I was ready to sign it up at the spot -- I was too exhausted to continue the search, after all -- and signing up I did.  It was a steal at $2500/mo. We'll move in on 5/31 and stay for 2 mo at least. And the real NYC experience will begin.

With all these hassle, I again registered 12,500 steps. Today  I'm staying in for real. I was getting close to a crash from the accumulation, and a full rest will do some good.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Yeah, Williamsburg was just what I expected. It's a hip place full of hip young people and a few hip old people sprinkled among them. It is not unlike Polk Gulch or Union Street in SF. You have to be a hipster to pay $3000/mo to live in Williamsburg when you can pay half to live in Queens. I wish I had that choice in SF; there is no equivalent of Queens in the Bay Area. Certainly not in terms of the character and the price.

We took L train Williamsburg from 14th Street. It's only a 3 stops away, so I can see it is convenient for the hip Lower East Siders. We explored a few blocks around the station, had lunch at Dziupla, a polish restaurant. I ordered Goulash, forgetting that I don't care much for it. It's been a while.  White Borscht and Cheese Pierogies were delicious though. Three course meal for $13 certainly was filling, so no complain.

Anyway, enough with the neighborhood exploration. We'll be settling in the Lower East Side for now. Then we'll continue our journey in August.

Queens

Brooklyn is hip. But Queens has more poetry.  Hip Williamsburg is the trend du jour, but poetry comes from things more enduring. Like the elevated 7 train rumbling over produce shops and children milling around the interection after school in a hot summer afternoon, or pockets of ethnicity bleeding into each other at the seams. They run like a watercolor in a rainy afternoon like today.

We went out to Astoria this time, in search of housing. We actually settled with the sublet in Union square, but I had previously scheduled to see a couple of places and it is a good way to explore the neighnorhood. The lessors all had accents. The first one on 30th Ave was Ukranian perhaps. And the second one Sam's Puetorican wife on Newtown Ave. They were all friendly and repectful people. Hard-working too. They, not you, are the ones making America Great, Donald.

It was our 3rd time in Queens, after Sunnyside and Long Island city. I'm afraid LIC will become another Williamsburg or Manhattan in another 20 years, but Astoria and Sunnyside will endure. And Flushing will too.

As a practical matter, it doesn't make sense to spend weeks searching for the right apartment when you are going to be in it only for a couple of months. So we settled with Union Square sublet. It is a coveted area, a hip place. I didn't like SF-like pretentious price, but the terms were right for us and the sublessor were willing to make a deal. It has quietude of the Union Square park and its side streets, and glitz of department stores next to it. If I coming back to settle down, however, I'll be choosing Queens.

Upper East Side

14000 steps already under my belt for the day and I still had half a mile to go to Lexington/60th station. I again was feeling desperate like Donner party at the base of the mountain caught by the snow. We walked down to York and  tried to catch a taxi. Most were occupied and the empty ones were going over the bridge to Queens. We came back to 210 E 60th and contemplated on calling Uber. It was surge-priced at $15 to go just half a mile. at 3PM? We sat and contemplated for some more and went up to 1st Ave and hailed a taxi there. The driver took us to 69th station instead. Going to 60th station would take longer because of the congestion, he said. He must've been right. Our fare only came to be 5.50. Take that, Uber. By the time we got off the taxi my mood lifted. and so did my fatigue.

The fatigue is certainly effected by the mood. When in despair or disppointment, it worsens. When elated or excited, it lessens. What I don't know is whether it is temporary, or has some lasting effect. I am speculating that the elation allows you to exercise more, and more exercise could build up more tolerance to exercise. It's a bootstrap effect. the elation jacks up the tolerance threshold; exercise concretize and makes the new threshold permanent; The next period of elation jacks up again and so on. This trip is about finding out if that may be true. If my condition substantially improves at the end of the trip, it at least leave that  possibility open. If not, it disproves.

The far UES seemed like  a taller, noisier version of Hell's Kitchen. And as inconvenient because there is only one subway line in UES. And also looks as industrial, perhaps because of Queensboro bridge  and FDR freeway. That differs from my memory of it as an upper class residential area from my visit 10 years ago. But that was the UES near Central Park along Madison Ave and Museum row.

Fair Fax, VA

Wife noticed that the trees got darker as we descended from the Blue Ridge. Up high, it's still cold and the foliage is still developing. Down here, it is the middle of summer.

I followed I-81 after charging up Tesla in Wytheville. Then I hit Shenandoah Skyline Drive by cutting off to US-33 to Elkton. Wife, hungry and cranky, complained that it is same as the Blue Ridge park way. It turned out, she was right. It is indeed Blue Ridge park way. It only changes the name to Skyline drive after it crosses I-64. And you have to pay $25 to get into it, unlike Blue Ridge or Smokey National Park. Maybe because the view looking down the Shenandoah valley were more spectacular. We bought the annual pass in Grand Canyon, so we didn't pay.

We exited Shenanoah national park at Luray on the way to Strasburg to charge up Tesla. The last time I was in Luray was almost four decades ago with my sister and her husband. We must've driven either on I-81 or Skyline drive to there to see the cavern. I no longer remember other than the fact that we were there.

Fair Fax, an hour drive from Strasburg, is 25 mile away from DC. Not such a convenient location. But it's relatively cheap and we are not going into DC this evening. We'll change up the lodge tomorrow after touring DC.

The post-exertional sickness continued this morning and I struggled to pack. By the time we got to Wytheville, I perked up a little though. It's as if getting back on the road turned me back on. Probably a coincidence. It's been over 4 days and it was time to recover anyway. But I still can't preclude the possibility of the excitement of being back on the road after 5 days had any effect.  This is similar how I recovered from the over-training syndrome when I was on the road to Crater National Park in 2007. I suffered fatigue and weakness for weeks leading to the trip planned before I got sick. I was lying on the parking lot while the troops were getting act together to leave. Then a couple hours into the trip I recovered.  For now, they are all circumstantial and I'll just have to treat them as anecdotes till proven otherwise.

Fancy Gap, Day 3

Aunt Bea apparently is not a good cook. The menu was a basic American affair that you would see in a high school cafeteria. The choice in the town of Galax was either that or Applebee's. I wanted to try a local -- Aunt Bea's is a southern chain whereas Applebee's are everywhere -- and that is what we got.  I ordered a fried chicken plate and the server asked if I wanted teah just like others. I was flummoxed for a second before replying "oh, you mean tea". It's been a while since I dealt with the southern accent.

It's the third day in Fancy Gap and the post-exertional sickness continued. My sister and her husband has to go back to their Raleigh home for a couple days and they came back around noon. But the power was out so we decided to go out for lunch. And lunch is all I did.  I was planning to take rest at my sister's for a week anyway, so nothing is lost. I just didn't plan on getting sickly.

Fancy Gap, VA

We romped around the creek on my sister's property for 15 minutes or so and now I'm paying the price for the second day. Not sure if it is the romping or the accumulation of one month getting unleashed though. I did something similar at Desert View in Grand Canyon and I recovered after one day of rest. It probably was shorter than 10 minutes though. I should've rested after arriving here, but they wanted to show off their property and I went along. It would've been a good opportunity to find out if a crash naturally follows after returning home after a trip.

The Sims own a few properties here. The one that we romped on is loaned out to an Angus farmer named JD. The cows, protected by two donkeys, substitutes for dangerous bulls I suppose, happily go about grazing and suckling their calves and rushing to lick salt off trucks. At least till humans come for them. It's like a deal with the devil. Except that cows are not a party to the deal.

We arrived here on Wednesday. We followed the Blue Ridge park way till Blowing Rock. Then I got tired of 45 mph on twisty road and decided to take a shorter route. And shorter route it wasn't. The road to Twin Oaks was even twistier, without the scenery. It would've taken about the same amount of time to get to here if I took the Blue Ridge all the way. Old Historic Inn and Restaurant in  Blowing Rock was pleasant though. We hooked up the car to a Tesla charger and rested for an hour while munching the chips and salsa looking down on the mountains. We could've made without the charging stop, but a rest is always good.



We'll stay here for a couple more days and recuperate. Then we'll head north to DC, Philadelphia, and finally NYC.

Mesauring Fatigue with WiGait

Folks at MIT came up with a way to measure the walking speed accurately enough for medical purpose. Apparently the walking speed is an indicator of various medical conditions and they wanted a way to measure it accurately enough without having to instrument the patients. They claim that it is more accurate than fitbit.  I'd agree: fitbit will give you steps you've taken each minute, but does not give you the instantaneous reading or running average. I was going to write an app, but an app requires that you have your smart phone all the time. You can't spontaneously measure your walking speed that way.

Anyway, the walking speed closely correlates the fatigue as I have noted last year. And being able to measure the speed automatically while you amble about at home would be the perfect solution for measuring fatigue.

Asheville, Day 2

Gaitlinburg via Blue Ridge park way and Smoky Mountains plus the Roaring Camp Motor Trail, then back to Asheville is 210 miles. That's a challenge for an EV with 210 mile range. I was going to charge up at Cherokee Welcome Center, but their Tesla charger was broken. I had to use J1772 and only got 15 miles in an hour or so. No matter, it was a beautiful place with Oconalofutee river in the back -- if you're gonna to get stuck, this is the place to be stuck in. We munched on free popcorn, enjoyed scenery and rested. At the end, we made back to Asheville with 24 miles left in the tank.

A sickly fatigue set in on the way. It's a familiar feeling: an evervating ache on triceps and a struggle to hold up the steering wheel. It must've been the effect of 4 push-ups I did the night before. My upper body was getting emaciated, I had to restart the push-ups.  I bounced back once we got to the Cherokee center though. It could've been time to bounce back anyway. Or seeing the river could have perked me up. It happened again in the Roaring Camp. I was fatigued out, not only with the EV range anxiety but also with the disappointment on the way up. There wasn't much to see unless you got out and hiked to one of the waterfalls. Then we found a beautiful spot along the creek on the way down and played there for a while. That was enough to wash away the fatigue.

It's a limited effect though, for sure. It wouldn't have made a difference when I was the sickest in 2008 or 2010. The stress of moving to different places back then only made my condition worse. But the novelty of traveling has become beneficial once my CFS had become stable enough. There always is that danger of over-doing, especially for patients with extremely limited energy envelope. But the emotional stimulation within the limit could well be helpful. And that is the basis for my Tesla treatment. If I come out of this travel substantially recovered from CFS, that could be a proof enough even if it is only anecdotal.

Asheville,, NC

Pouring rain and the thickets of greenery. If there was any doubt that this was the east coast, these should settle it once and for all. But the humidity abated. It's probably got to do with the altitude and cool weather of Asheville.

Today was my day off. I'm feeling OK after 9 hours of sleep -- no post-exertional sickness from the accumulation or anything, just the familiar ache and fatigue shooting up  the IT band and along the triceps. Only a year ago I spent most of my waking hours lying down. Now I'm mostly up even after a week of driving and walking. Amazing.

We spent the afternoon in downtown Asheville. The rain stopped while we sat in the coffee shop across Vance Memorial munching on a coconut macaroon brownie and the sun came out. We strolled for a while and then drove through Historic Montford neighborhood before heading to Biltmore. Biltmore was too expensive, so we turned around and came home. I wasn't the one to pay $130 for us to see some tycoon's indulgence. Nice estate though. I wouldn't mind living in one.

We missed the Great Smokey Mountain national park. We should've gone to Knoxville instead of Greenville and then to Asheville. I just followed the Scenic Drive book and I didn't pay attention. We'll drive to Knoxville via Smokey Mountain and back tomorrow. Four hours on the Blue Ridge park way and then 2 hours back, I reckon. We came too far to miss it. Yeah, I've been there before, but it was such a long time ago I hardly remember. Besides, I gotta make use of the national park pass that I bought in Grand Canyon. I would have given it up, but my condition has improved so much while on this trip, I'm confident I can handle it. Even with another 6 hour trip in the other direction on the Blue Ridge planned for the next day. My sister is in her Fancy Gap home, so we are going there instead of Raleigh on Wed.