Restless? Wistfullness? Disquieted?

Apparently, there are German words for this feeling -- sehnsucht and fernweh.

The north bay of Bear Head Lake

For 23 days, from July 24th through August 16th, I was on this year's road trip. We stayed at my mom's on the first night to have a birthday breakfast with her the next morning (it was her 80th!), and after that, it was tent camping every night. 

We went to Buffalo, NY to visit the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site on the morning of the 26th, and cut across southern Ontario to Michigan afterwards. The border crossing into Canada was more adversarial than a trip we made back in May. I'm not looking forward to how our upcoming trip in November will go. 

A chandelier, converted to electricity from gas, in the library where the inauguration happened

the eastern shore of Lake Huron at Pinery Provincial Park

We stayed at Pinery Provincial Park that Sunday night, which I wish we'd been able to explore more of. Every one of the Ontario Provincial Parks we've visited or stayed at over the past few years are really amazing gems.

Pat wanted to visit some sites in the U.P., so it was across the Mackinac Bridge and into pasty-land. A quick stop in St. Ignace on Monday night was followed by drive through Marquette to visit an old fishing spot of Pat's, then a stay at Lake Gogebic and a trip to the Porcupine Mountains. 

Pat fished at Lake Gogebic. There's a reason they call it fishing and not catching.

A loon on Lake Gogebic

Lake of the Clouds in the Porcupine Mountains

We hiked the Presque Isle River trail to see where the river meets Lake Superior.

Pat standing partway up the stairs that lead down, down, down the trail to the mouth of the river.

Presque Isle River meets Lake Superior

We didn't stop anywhere in Wisconsin, as Pat wanted to go to the newly opened Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, ND. Since he had a flight home out of Casper, WY on August 2, that constrained when and where else we could go. We stayed a night in Minnesota about 20 minutes from the southern shores of Mille Lacs Lake (talk about redundant naming!), then drove across North Dakota. 

The "World's Largest Buffalo" in Jamestown, ND

a damselfly near Sweet Briar Lake

If you're going to go to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, make sure you know that you need timed entrance tickets. Sadly, we ended up entering around 3:30PM (well, our tickets were for 3PM, but the line to enter was slow). We spent about 2 hours inside, and could have spent more time, except my knee started hurting badly partway through. We also had a campsite in Custer, SD that night, and it was a longer drive than I anticipated. The "library" is more of a museum, taking you from TR's childhood through his post-presidency years. There's a lot of interactive features that allow you to form a "journal" of your visit, but a good amount of it is AI (such as the photos that insert you into various eras). Between the AI and the lines to do the various interactives, I opted not to do a lot of it, so my journal is kind of sparse. 

Before going to the library, we went to the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park

A lone bison standing on a ridge at Theodore Roosevelt National Park

a takeaway I had from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

The last full day with Pat was spent at Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I suggested camping at Elk Mountain Campground and getting two nights there so that we didn't have to pack everything before heading to Casper to drop him off at the airport, and it made things very calm and easy heading into Sunday morning. 

Wild burros at Custer State Park

The Needles at Custer SP

A bison bull at Wind Cave National Park. During the rut, where there's one, there are usually more

Bison on the move at Wind Cave National Park

a fledgling robin near our campsite

night skies out west are incredible

The morning view from Pat's side of the tent

After I dropped him off, it was back to the campground, and the beginning of the lonely part of my trip. I'll (hopefully) complete this later in a part 2.

Chadron State Park, Nebraska's first state park

Frustration

I wish the county would decide if they are going to actually transition to standards based grading (which is what the 50% rule is trying to emulate), or if they are going to continue the farce of the percent based system.

The two systems are incongruent. Either you expect students to master a certain *percentage* of the material and standards, or you expect students to reach a particular level of mastery.

After years of this travesty, I'm convinced my county doesn't really care about accurate measurement of student achievement, and really only wants to have a measure that puts them in the best, positive light, regardless of the accuracy of the data.

One Week!

I've been trying to pre-plan for the road trip (#FünfTrek) stopping points this year, mainly because I'm tired of fighting with the Sturgis attendees for a place to stop anywhere in a 500 miles radius of the rally. I also know that I struggle to get away from the house to even start the trip, ever since 2018, so I made a reservation to kickstart that as well. 

I should be on my way next Thursday, as I made a reservation in Shenandoah National Park. 

In the meantime, I'll be going through my gear to make sure I'm prepared for all parts of my trip! I also figured I'd sadly review the state of my New Year's Resolutions. 

1) This is the one that I have been able to maintain without fail, despite injury, weather or whatever. Most recently, it was Soldiers Delight again. 

A swollen stream to traverse at Soldiers Delight

2) No, I haven't been blogging once a month. I skipped April which bled into May and June.... I'll go into the why momentarily because it relates to another resolution. 

3) Eesh, no, I've fallen off the book reading wagon, and I need to change that. I think with the road trip coming up next week, it will be easier to get back into it... at least with some e-books. I don't want to bring a bunch of physical books with me. 

4) This. This one frustrates me the most because breaking it wasn't due to anything I consciously (or even subconsciously) did. This one stopped on April 5. I know the exact date because that's the day that I unintentionally walked off the tailgate of Pat's truck. No, I don't know what I was doing; I was just trying to unload the storm doors I'd bought, and I apparently forgot that the tailgate was down or something. I legitimately thought I was stepping down to the bumper of the truck. You ever have that sensation of stepping down, thinking you are going to contact the next step at a certain point, and it doesn't happen when you think it will? Yeah, now, imagine that you never make contact with that step. That is what happened. I stepped down.... and my leg kept going down.... Pat said it looked like I just walked off the end of the tailgate. 

I landed on my left forearm and hip, hard. I don't know how I didn't break something, though the pain was so intense, all I could do was writhe there in the driveway, crying in pain. Pat looked helpless. I hurt so bad. After over ten minutes, I staggered-crawled with Pat's help to the bathroom to try to clean up the wounds and assess the damage. 

It only took minutes to bleed through the wrapping

I could move my wrist and my elbow up/down (flex/extend), but any hyperextension of the wrist, attempts to support something with my wrist extended, or twisting (pronation/supination) of the elbow resulted in extreme pain. I went to urgent care the next day, and they sent me to the radiologist for X-rays. 

My elbow

Nothing showed up on the X-rays, so it was all soft-tissue damage. And it hurt. It hurt so bad. I was taking Advil like candy, and ultimately was prescribed 800mg tablets. 

It still hurts. 

Yeah, you read that correctly. Almost four months later, my wrist and elbow still hurt, though it's not nearly as debilitating it was the first two months. Now, kinesiology tape or a wrist brace will allow me to do things, including exercises that involve the wrist. My left hip still has a sore spot. 

It took three months before I could put enough weight on my left wrist/elbow to do planks or bear crawls or anything else that involved body weight on it. I tried a few times over the course of those three months to pick up where I'd left off (I'd just restarted the Centr Sculpted program again), and while I could many of the moves, I became horribly depressed over the pain and the inability to do simple stuff, like open a door or carry stuff with my left hand/arm. 

That depression was hard to overcome. I'd wanted to do so much during my spring break, and the injury derailed everything. I didn't get to camp, I couldn't exercise, I couldn't tie my shoes, I couldn't even drive. As it was, when I returned to work, I probably shouldn't have been driving those first few days. The pain was still intense, and if I had to move the steering wheel even moderately quickly, the pain took my breath away. That's why I wasn't blogging. That's why my exercising ground to a halt. 

Anyway, over the last two weeks, I've been able to pick back up and recover. I lost some of my gains, but I'm back in the saddle. I was still hiking as much as I could (my first post-injury hike was at Soldiers Delight right after there was a massive wildfire there, and it hurt my hip but I had my hiking poles so I was able to push through). 

Three days after the injury

Soldiers Delight after the fire

So, yeah, over the past two weeks, I've gotten back into the 4+ days of at least 20min of exercise. I plan to continue this.

5) Let's not talk about this one. Depression takes a hell of a toll. 

6) The WRX is currently languishing in the garage and serving as a shelf. Maybe I'll look at this before I leave next week so that I can at least get it through emissions, if not drive it to Boxerfest, which is the Sunday after I return from STEAM in the Park Voyageurs and the road trip. 

In the meantime, I do have the Camaro back after the engine install. Just one bent rod, but I guess that's also because I shut it down immediately when the damage occurred. 

Don't use cheap parts or mechanics. It will cost you more in the long run. Those lifters have 10K on them.

Happy Camaro

I do need to get it tuned, though that will likely not be able to happen until after I return from the road trip. 

So, that's where things stand, more than seven months into 2023! 

Planning

It's just about that time of year. 

The road trip is coming. 

An atlas is the best friend of a road tripper

So far, Pat has booked a flight into Denver, and a flight out of Minneapolis-St. Paul, plus arranged for fishing with RainyDaze Guide Service. Our plan so far is to go to Pikes Peak, maybe Rocky Mountain National Park, Wind Cave National Park and....??? before Voyageurs, where Pat's part of the trip will end.  

Why is Pat flying home on this trip?

Because I'll finish up the trip at Voyageurs at the second STEAM in the Park camp that I'll do this summer!

New River was the first STEAMinthePark camp I attended, and I touched something weird

In preparation for the trip, I've been going through our gear and cleaning, replacing and adding to it as appropriate. I did an "introduction to backpacking" session at Patapsco Valley State Park last month, and learned that backpacking backpacks need to be properly sized to avoid back injury. Since I've been looking at doing an overnight backpacking trip somewhere, this was important information!

This backpack was way too long for me.

After the session, I went to REI in Columbia to get sized and to try out various backpacks. Partly due to Naturalist Sam's recommendation on how well his Osprey packs had worked, I settled on a 65L Osprey Aura AG, then came home to order it since I had my REI Coop coupons and several gift cards from last Yule. 

I've also been streamlining other gear by cleaning up and listing our older Rhinowolf modular tents. We really don't use the original ones any more, since the version 2.0 is easier to set up and take down due to the center pole being outside the tent rather than inside. 

Rhinowolf tents are cool because they can zip together and have integrated sleeping pads and down blankets.

Beyond all that, I've already made reservations to camp in Curecanti NRA the night before I pick up Pat from the airport in Denver. Curecanti is essentially next door to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, so I'll finally check both of those off my Passports list! I figure that will be on the way "back" from the Bonneville Salt Flats, where I won't see Speed Week this time around. 

The Crosstrek looks at home on the Salt Flats

I'm getting antsy to head out. This'll be the fifth year of adventuring in the Crosstrek, so the hashtag we'll use is #FünfTrek (fünf is German for 5). Follow along if you want! 

note that links to Amazon are associate links and if you buy something through that link, I may receive nominal compensation. 
 

Marching

 This is the worst time of year for me. It's March. It's a march towards the worst day of my life. 

Mom and Dad on that fateful day.

I can't help it. 

A lot of it is because I feel so much unresolved guilt. There was so much I wanted to ask, so much I wanted to know. 

I also knew how depressed my dad was at the constant hospitalizations. He was so tired. 

Dad and Allison (in Jessica's arms) a few days after Alli's birth in 2014 

I remember arguing with him about this. I hated hearing words out of my mouth from him. One of the last times... the last time I had this conversation with him was when I was visiting him at the hospital in January 2015. We had the Capitals game on. They lost to Montreal. 

It would be the last time I got to interact with him in person, but I didn't know that then. He called me on my birthday. He wasn't at home yet, but he wasn't at that terrible place in Reisterstown that had my brother ready to fight someone for how the staff was treating him. 

The next two weeks are just me going through the motions these days, as I remember the lost opportunities and the horror of the text messages I was receiving those final days. 

Somewhere in a pile of rubber and steel

One day, April 2 will dawn, and I won't feel the dread and sadness that I've felt since 2015, when I awoke that morning knowing that was the day Dad would die. I don't know why we chose that day. I wish we hadn't chosen that day to turn off the ventilator; it's the day my beloved Camaro rolled off the assembly line, and now the joy of that car is forever tied to the anguish of losing my dad. 

So bear with me. Pat told me that day 8 years ago that the pain never goes away, that it just gets easier to manage. I guess I usually manage it okay, except for this time of year. But yeah, the pain is still there. 

It always will be. 

I love you, Daddy.