Kadoka, SD

The scenery in late morning and the early afternoon sun is not as scintillating: the high sun makes everything flat. The clear sky with overcast horizon did not help the matter.  Our journey along I-90 resumed as such this morning.

The scenery looked like a continuation of what we saw yesterday till we got close to the  Missouri River. The land turned drier and cornfield thinned out as we crossed it. Soon sunflower fields appeared and they too thinned out when sage brushes appeared. Then the cattle farms as the grass turned brown. By now, it decidedly looked West. You couldn't have told it from the Central Valley if the land were a bit more parched. Missouri River, so it seems, is the starting line of the West.

Here in Kadoka, there is no grass to be found. It is all parched gravel. Terribly hot too. The coolness of Sioux Falls is nowhere to be found.

I didn't sleep well last night despite whirlwind activities 4 days in a row. Yesterday I was pretty high.  Today I'm pooped out. It was just like June last year when my activities suddenly picked up and I was unable to sleep more than 6 hours.  Not sleeping well and not getting sick. These are the signs that I'm improving. And I'm getting a bit more confident everyday that I am recovering.

Sioux Falls, SD

The endless corn fields undulates gently, throwing shadows and lights in turn on the corn canopy. The reddish brown and yellow hue of corn husks on the deep green stalks and leaves. This sea of cornfield stretched out along I-90 all the way to Sioux Falls. Incredible pictures came and went, and I couldn't back up to capture them on the freeway that flew by at 75 mph. A real artist may have. I instead put the car on autopilot and shot while driving.

A dead wolf on the roadside shortly after Albert Lea, MN. This is the home of Timber Wolves. There are quite a few grey wolves in this part of the country since the reintroduction.

It showered shortly after we left Madison. The road got washed clean and fresh. The afternoon light poured in at an angle and the after-storm cloud floated all around. They all added to the sense of vastness. We drove on into that vast space called mid-west chasing the sun till it finally set at 9:01 PM in Worthington where we pulled in for the final charging. This town is at the edge of the Central time zone -- it changes to Mountain time after Sioux Falls. Then we drove into the night with bugs pelting the windshield just like in Texas. The humid night was palpably cooler than Texas though.

After 13 hours of drive, we were at Holiday Inn in Sioux Falls. And I wasn't too tired. Not nearly as much as I was after the drive in Texas from Albuquerque to Austin. Maybe because this one was shorter. Or maybe because I have improved since. We went for the hot tub and swimming after the check in. And I have enough energy left to write a blog. That's enough for me to believe more than ever that I am recovering.

Chicago, Day 2

Something exploded and then a burning smell ensued. The blue line train we were on then got stuck in the dark for 30 minutes. Good thing that happened shortly after we left the station. The train eventually rolled back about a hundred yard to the station and we made a mad dash to the train on the next platform. Then we got on the #65 bus in the wrong direction when we got off the train. I thought it was running a circular route to Navy Pier from the Grand station of the blue line, but it went across the town in the other direction. It took me about 10 minutes before I realized my mistake and we got off the bus. In all, it took us 3 hours to get to Navy Pier from the hotel.

The Architectural Cruise was worth the trouble though. It went down Chicago river from Navy Pier  and then back, for the total of 75 minutes. Along the way were numerous buildings of architectural significance of Chicago school and others. It's the best way to see the Chicago downtown, hands down.

We were going to hang out in Magnificent Mile in the afternoon after the cruise, but it was late, thanks to all the snafu in the morning. We left it for tomorrow and returned to catch 5:15 shuttle back to hotel.

After 12,000 steps yesterday at a decent pace, I was pretty tired this morning. But I managed OK with another 10,000 steps. And that's 3 days of nonstop activities.I'll sleep in tomorrow and start the commute at 11AM.

Chicago, IL

Tailgaters and lane weavers. The drivers got more aggressive as we got closer to Chicago. They started to appear in Gary IN, well before Chicago. They are practically driving like Californians. I wonder why people here are more aggressive than New Yorkers -- I rarely saw them in or around NYC. (The real question, I suppose, is why New Yorkers are so tamed these days).

We checked out of Days Inn in Whitehall around 11 AM and drove straight to Chicago after a fueling stop in Country Club Hill, a misnamed working class neighborhood with a large Black population. A grocery stop in Walmart near the charging station, and we were at Extended Stay in Des Plaines at around 4 PM. We'll commute to Chicago for a few days from here.

My pace picked up quite a bit for a few days since the outing in Mackinac Island. The resistance in the form of constant fatigue has disappeared and it wasn't easy to restrain myself.  It was enough for me to think maybe I recovered from CFS. It was just like last June when the sudden improvement appeared. Then the fatigue returned in full force yesterday. I couldn't keep my eyes open while driving despite a full day's rest and 8 hours of sleep. And my legs got heavy and achy again this morning. The faster pace must have taken the toll. I'll have to slow down again. Not all the way back to 90 steps/min, but 94 steps may be safe enough.

Mackinow City, MI

The day is getting shorter. The sun now rises after 7 PM and the car is soaked with the morning dew. We'll have to hurry; we need to get the Yellow Stone before it gets cold.

We checked out of Gratiot View motel in Saginow yesterday and drove to Roberts Landing campground in Cheboygan yesterday, following the lakefront Hwy 23. All along the route was the beaches and marsh lands. They were mostly deserted too, especially ones around Rogers City that were totally vacant.

Today I aborted the plan to camp in Munising. Not because we wanted to speed up the trip, but I'm dead tired from camping last night and charging wasn't too convenient on the Munising route. From Munising to the next supercharger is 250 miles, and there isn't a good place to charge in between.

And I'm damn glad we changed the plan. we took a rest at Waterfront Motel till 2 PM and went to Mackinac Island on Shepler ferry -- the solar eclipse was at the peak of the solar eclipse by the time we got on board. It's almost like the ferry to Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay, complete with the suspension bridge to the left and all. Huron Lake is not a bay, however. It is an ocean.

It is about the size of Angel Island too. We wanted to go the Arch Rock, but it was 2 miles away. We rented a tandem bike and ended up riding it all the way around the island. Yes, I'm instinctively feeling that confident these days. I haven't had any post-exertional sickness since June and have been regularly taking 50,000 steps per week. And I'm pretty sure I'm not going to crash from this bike ride. (Wife did most pedaling, to be honest, though I took over whenever she was losing the balance.)

This road-side motel had both the beach and spa. We soaked in the hot tub, swam a couple of lap and I feel like a million bucks now. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Saginaw, MI

The plan to rest in Auburn Hill didn't work out. The price of Extended Stay shot up to $110 overnight and we moved to Saginaw.  That's OK as long as we are moving along our route: the Saginaw Bay is the jump off point for the Sunrise trail to Cheboygan. We'll rest here today. It's actually good to hang out in a small town see how locals live.

The problem though, is packing and unpacking takes quite a bit of energy and that undoes the plan for the rest. I'll have to remind myself, once again, to book 2 nights when planning for the rest. I'm still doing OK, however. And my walking pace is still up, faster than I would like, so I have to consciously slow down. The next 2 days will be a challenge though. If I'm still doing OK afterward, I'll be tempted to declare a recovery. It will be a recovery enough if I can do everything except strenuous exercise.

Detroit, MI

No question other than where we live and where we have been. The scary looking guy at the border was more interested in my car than checking out our paper works. He was fairly knowledgeable too. He knew that 30 minute charging for 150 miles is enough because you have to rest anyway after 2 hours of driving. And like that, we were back in the US soil again.

This is the town where Vincent Chin was murdered with baseball bat by two laid off Chrysler workers in the 80s. They ended up with suspended sentenced by a racist judge who later said "These weren't the kind of men you send to jail". Maybe teaching everybody in China this will stop them from practicing white supremacy over there.

We ended up in another flea motel in the form of Days Inn. a couple of hours of nap, and wife ended up with multiple bedbug bites all over  her body. We switched the room and we ended up with a dump in an open corridor. I had my doubt, but I booked it anyway because of the pool. Now I redouble my resolve to avoid flea motels.

Niagara Falls, Toronto and then drive to Detroit. It's been 4 days of nonstop activities. And yet I'm still up and running. My pace has been picking up too. That's enough for me to start imagining the recovery once again. I should experiment with a new pace while I'm still travelling despite the risk of getting sick, to see if the pace, as well as the amount of activities, are better tolerated while travelling. I need a day of rest for now though make sure that I don't get sick. Maybe I'll jack up the pace after that. We are going to camp out for 2-3 days, so that could be a good opportunity.