Life in Bryce

It's been raining just about everyday since I arrived in Utah. It's the monsoon season in this part of the country and they are getting more rain than usual. It's cooler than normal too. Which makes my sleeping bag and skin sticky and cold inside the sleeping bag at night. But I have an electric blanket and it turns cold dampness into dry warmth in an instant. I'll have to pat myself on the back for carrying it with me. 

The mornings are stunningly refreshing around here. The sun comes out, the shrubs and grass glisten with morning dew and the cool air fills your lung to jolts you back into life. I haven't been to Pine Island, MN, but the backyard of William Duffy's farm can't be much better than this.

After the coffee and serial or oatmeal, I make daily commute to Ruby's Inn. I plug in the car, use their bathroom and then do the Internet thing on their free wifi. It is the best inn I've never slept in. I'll have to pay them back someday by staying in. Actually, I did. In 2017, we stayed on one of their RV campsite. Back then, they didn't have Tesla chargers. So we had to buy an RV site to charge the car over night.

In the afternoon, thunderstorms roll in like a clockwork. The hours may vary. It's an opportunity to lather up your hair and scrub dirt off your skin on your day off. You can put a couple of half gallon bottles on the top of your car to warm them up before the storm rolls in.  The temperature drops quite a bit when the storm arrives though; you might want to do the bath while the sun is out unless you have to conserve the water.

I'm no longer clocking my walking speed or pacing myself. I haven't measured it, but I'm sure it's over 100 steps/min. I'm not taking breaks between the tasks either. Now I just do what I need to do like normal people do and then take a break when I feel like. Before, every task felt like a mountain to climb; now, nothing feels like that. And the recovery from hiking takes only a day or two, not days or weeks. It took 2 days after Angel's Landing. Yesterday I did 4 miles and 1500 feet elevation on Peekaboo route, and the 8 hours of sleep was enough for recovery. It feels like a complete recovery from CFS. Will it last? I could well slip back into CFS and PEM sickness when I return home. For how, I'm enjoying the recovery here in Bryce. 

This trip was all about the recovery from CFS and I said I'll return when I'll have recovered when I started the trip. But the recovery came much faster than I expected. The trip now will have to be about travel and experience, like a normal trip for a normal person is. I guess I'll finish the trip as planned, at least till Colorado, and decide whether to proceed to NYC or return. 

With strong breeze, it actually feels cold here in the shade. I'll now move to the sun.