2026 Bear Hunt Day -0.5 - Sometimes Struggle Is The Solution

A picture came up in my history feed a few days ago from our 2017 Total Eclipse adventure.  It reminded me of how much things have changed in the last nine years.  Minor health issues; reminders that my body has an expiration date even if I don't know when that is.  A special needs dog; the universe revolves around her as she slowly becomes the dog she might have always been.  It's been three years since I've done any kind of motorcycle trip and six since S/O and I have done one together.  Work responsibilities have increased, even if I'm convinced most of what I do doesn't matter.

“The universe is Time's body.” - John Crowley, Little, Big

But sometimes it seems like something has been lost.  I have no reason to complain; I know I'm incredibly fortunate.  We lose things because we first have things to lose.

And if I look at it objectively, it is hard to say I've lost much when I'm on a 1000+ mile journey to hunt and fish.

I was mulling this over as the week before bears progressed.  I took a few hours of precious vacation time to mow the fantastically long lawn on Wednesday, packed up Thursday and had a final shortened day at work Friday.  I was able to leave with Inbox near zero so I'll count that as a win (big time).  I was on the road shortly after noon.

I easily settled into the drive.  Indianapolis was bonkers, but at least there was less construction than I recall from my last time through; Indy NEVER has no construction.  Then traffic lightened considerably for the remainder of the day.

I was listening to Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen.  It was mildly interesting and informative, but he certainly seemed to be selective on what he chose to complain about and his principles were applied erratically (so maybe the aren't really principles).  It wasn't bad, but it was too easy to let my mind wander, especially since it was quite repetitive.  I'll need to finish the book to make a final judgement, but all I can say is after writing a 20 hour book, he could have just written a better textbook.  But I guess complaining is more fun, and I suspect writing what he would consider a "good" textbook would end up being even more cumbersome than the 1000 page tomes he says are terrible history text books.

I easily found my hotel in Northern Illinois.  A quick gas stop and some soda from Walmart and I called it a day.  The real adventure is almost about to begin.