The Start of Something Big Day 4 - Home

Madison, Wi to Home:  476.9 miles

After waking up to cats all over me I had one too many cups of coffee before saying goodbye to Sis and her SO.  It's always great to see them and I was glad they could make the time.  With the oil and tires checked, I headed out of Madison on nearly-empty Sunday-morning roads.

As I left I found my mind wandering back to the issues at work and home, and I realized looking back 40-50 years can be like peering into a box of broken toys.  Stuck in the netherland of work-eat-seep-repeat for too long is soul-crushing.  I miss boundless curiosity for curiosity's sake.  I would like to explore all the possibilities of where the Mississippi River starts, and decide for myself.  I would like to follow my stick down the Mississippi River and watch it enter the Gulf of Mexico.  I'd like to create my own runestone.  But I'll have to settle for exploring the cultural starting point of the Mississippi River - which is still a great thing to be able to do.  I'm very fortunate to have been able to do this.

I motored south to Bloomington then headed east towards home.  Temperatures were cool, but not cold and it was easy to stay comfortable.  This can sometimes be no small feat after four long days on the bike.

Sometimes the ride from Sis's house to home goes by fast, on this day there were spurts where it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere.  I let my mind wander as I rolled along.  A north wind at times gave me chills, but it is better than an east wind - nothing good has ever come from an east wind.

Back at home Tibbit was really happy to see me and quite curious about all the smells.  I contemplated going to to work on Monday, which would have meant mowing the lawn after getting home.  That just felt like too much.  So a quick wash of the bike was in order allowing me another day to own my own time.

The Start of Something Big Day 3 - THE Start

Lake George, MN to Madison, WI:  550.8 miles

After a much better night's sleep than the previous night (no trains up here in northern Minnesota), I putzed around the hotel room for a while and changed my plans a bit for the day.

When I was a young kid, I always wondered how roads ended.  I don't remember having the same discomfort about where they started since they seemed to start at the end of the driveway (I guess).  I lived on a dead end street, so I suppose I may not have been too bright as that pretty much defines how a street ends - at least in suburbia.  That dead end street today in Google StreetView looks terrifyingly like it did way back when.

I suppose another possibility is that this book came out when I was young and was seemingly a staple of every school library.  The cover scared me (I felt bad for the dog) and it didn't look anything like the cul-de-sac I lived on.

Back in 2001 I was able to discover another dramatic way a road ends while on South Padre Island in Texas.  The main road on the island just ends - swallowed up by the sand dune the consumes it.

An equally pertinent childhood question:  Where does a river start.

The answer is ... it depends.  And the answer is also dependent on culture, history, politics, and yes, geography.

The Mississippi River watershed covers over a million square miles and is arguably the most important river system in North America.  It starts somewhere north of where I live.  Canada at one point was claiming the headwaters since that would have given it much more control over the water.  But Canada lost.  Northern Minnesota is dotted with many lakes and streams, any number of which could be the start of the river.  The story of the "true start" of the Mississippi River is filled with giant scientific egos in a way that science is still dotted with too many giant egos.  At various times Glazier Lake, Elk Lake, Turtle River all claimed to be the ab initio.  After reading about the history of the area, I sort of like Lake Bemidji since it is where the water begins is long, slow, meandering journey south toward the Gulf of Mexico.

While detractors remain, culture always wins and in this case is aided by the USGS.  Lake Itasca is the source of the Mississippi River (and the earth is flat).  I've crossed the Mississippi more times than I can count.  I've been to near where it dumps into salt water.  It is time to see the source.

Lake Itasca was about 15 very cold minutes away from Lake George.  The state park that contains THE start of the river didn't open until 8:00 so I had to putz around for a bit and got gas before heading that way.  With temperatures in the 30's, a few people at the gas station felt obligated to tell me it was "a bit cold for a motorcycle."

I got to Lake Itasca State Park and entrance was self-serve so I probably could have gotten there earlier.  There was no pen though so I dug around in the motorcycle pockets and found one.  It was so cold that the pen barely worked; I'm betting the park will need to call me for clarification since it was almost unreadable.

Once inside the park a bridge crosses over the Mississippi River - here it is just a stream, gurgling insignificantly along.

The parking lot for the head waters was nearly deserted, but I was surprised to see a tour bus this early.  I figured maybe it was just parked for the night.  I walked the short path to the lake only to see a large amount of people.  However, they were much more interested in something other than the water as it became obvious they were birders.  Birders are a fanatical lot (which I suppose is good).

I wandered around a bit and tried to walk across the stones, but the water was just high enough that I doubted myself.  I turned around and had a conversation with a birder who was watching me, "I'm on a motorcycle and with as cold as it is, if I go in, I'm done."  A short distance away was a log allowing me to walk across the Mississippi River.

Shortly the birders left to go find feathers elsewhere and I had the Headwaters to myself.  I took quite a few pictures on the stunning, cool morning.  It was hard to contemplate the distance to a sultry New Orleans.

After wandering around a bit, I found a perfect pooh stick for the longest game of pooh sticks in history.  Standing on the log across the river, I tossed it in.  I watched it wend its way downstream until I could no longer see it anymore.  I left it to go on its journey while I turned away to go on my own.

I rode out through the park and was glad I did since it was such a pretty morning, even if it was cold.  I wished I had more time to explore as it looked like there was lots of pretty hiking to do.  I'm not sure I would want to do it during July since I suspect the park is loaded with people then.

Temperatures were warming slightly, but there was just enough wind to be a bit painful at times.  I continued south to Alexandria, Minnesota.

In 1898 Olof Öhman was clearing land for a farm and unearthed a large stone inscribed with runes.  At first he didn't think much of it, but eventually the writing was traced to Viking origins of an age that predates Columbus.  While it is almost certain that Nordic adventurers were in North America long before Columbus, how far they got inland is largely unknown - yet assumed to be limited to the Northeast coast.  But Vikings reaching Saint Paul would be quite fantastic.  It should be noted that this area of Minnesota was eventually settled by Scandinavians which seems slightly too coincidental.  

I first read of what is now called the Kensington Runestone in BJ Hollars excellent book Midwestern Strange.  Why BJ Hollars does not have a broader audience I find baffling.  His writing is engaging and Midwestern-sincere.  He doesn't succumb to the allure of pessimism - which is all to easy to do.  Mr. Hollars is one of a couple writers I really like who live in the area, every time I drive anywhere near Western Wisconsin, I always hope I serendipitously meet one of them.  This is vanishingly unlikely and I should be glad about this.  My guess is that neither one of them really wants to meet a chubby dude in the middle of mid-life who happens to like their writing.  Never meet your heroes?  No, never become a hero to anyone.

The Kensington Runestone has, with near-certainty, been deemed a hoax.  But exactly who did this and why is unclear since no one at the time really benefited from it.  I guess much like Mark Landis, some people just can't help themselves.  But I suppose that whether it is a hoax or not matters less than allowing myself to suspend being rational for a brief moment and just let the world be the fantastic place that it wants to be.

The Kensington Runestone now sits in a museum in Alexandria.  I easily found it and paid my entrance fee.  The stone sits prominently at the foyer once inside.  A short video explains the history of the runestone.  It was informative, funny and tragic.  I looked it over the artifact itself and, after having tried to see it previously, it was a little anticlimactic.  Some of the other artifacts seemed more convincing even if the provenance was not as clear?

The rest of the museum was interesting and well-done, if overly Midwestern.  There was bikes, snowmobiles, Indians, WWII, vikings, mastodons, bison and lots and lots of bad taxidermy.  Some of it stunningly bad. This is not fair, since much of it is old taxidermy done in a time when quality forms were not an internet click away.  Taxidermists had to make their own and getting it right was challenging.  Still, by modern sensibility, some of the misshapen beasts were a bit hard to look at.

The story of the dog was touching in light of my current dog situation.  I'll even allow the taxidermy of it wasn't terrible.

The museum was enjoyable even if was not able to solve the mystery of the Kensington Runestone.  Back on the bike I headed south and east.  With temperatures warming slightly and the prevailing wind behind me, it was relatively pleasant.

Questions remained as I rolled along.  The average speed of the Mississippi River runs somewhere between 1.2 and 3 miles-per-hour depending on water level and location.  I would have like to have watched my stick travel the distance.  I did not have time to watch a 3 month game of Poohsticks no matter how riveting it may be.

The Mississippi River is often called the longest river in the United States, but by most definitions it is not.  Almost certainly the Missouri River is longer.  And as the largest feeder into the river that eventually dumps into the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans, why is the Missouri River not the upper branch Mississippi River?  Which would make the stretch of water between Minnesota and St. Louis something else altogether...

Getting through Minneapolis was again torture as a mix of construction and two accidents meant a couple back-ups.  Once rolling again, I made my way into Wisconsin.  The amount of road kill deer in Wisconsin was staggering.

I got to my sister's house around 6:30 which is a bit late by my normal standards.  We had a chance to talk for a bit and catch up before her SO came home.  A quick meal and it was time to go to bed surrounded by Sis's cats.

The Start of Something Big Day 2 - Rain Make the River

Marquette, IA to Lake George, MN:  437.3 miles

Some of the hotel reviews mentioned train horns all night, and the trains did not disappoint.  They did seem to stop around the time I couldn't sleep anymore.  Suffice to say, it wasn't the best night of sleep I've ever had.  A few cups of hotel coffee could only do so much, even while I really appreciate a coffee maker in the room.

By a little after 6:00 I was bouncing off the hotel room walls ready to go.  There was rain in the area and I thought that if I left a bit early, I could get ahead of it.  I originally was going to hop over to the Wisconsin side of the river, but stayed on the Iowa side and was glad I did as a beautiful sunrise over the Mississippi River pushed me down the road.  The first hour on the road was absolutely magical.

After that, things did go down hill just a bit.  The rain I was trying to get ahead of got ahead of me.  It started with a light spitting but soon enough it became more than that.  When I left, I had put on my rain pants assuming they were probably not needed.  They were.  Around La Crescent, MN, it turned into a full on thunderstorm.  The rain did let up from there, but I remained wet all the way to Minneapolis.

I hadn't seen my cousin Susan in several years and thought it would be fun to visit if she could since I was going to be going through Minneapolis.  Luckily she could make it work, so after hugging the Mississippi River for two half days, I headed to her house.  I got there early, so we had a chance to visit for a while and I was able to meet her SO.  We went to lunch at a café which overlooks the Mississippi River.  Pork Belly was probably not the best choice before a few more hours on the motorcycle, but it was good.  

I was curious what the big orange balls in the river were for?

It was great getting a chance to see her and catch up.  It is too easy to see cousins as frozen in time when we were kids, but life's twists and turns do happen to all of us.

I was originally planning on heading to the Kensington Runestone Museum, but there just wasn't time since it is only open until 4:00.  Not going was probably the right decision since it was a long day as it was.  This is the second time I did not make it to the museum (reason to try again...).

Back on the bike I headed north.  It should have been a really nice ride, but mentally it was brutal.  It was really windy and temperatures were dropping steadily.  It did take longer than it should have to get to Lake George, but it felt twice as long.

Once at the hotel I got some snacks before eating another noodle bowl for dinner.  After being cold on the bike it was nice to crank the heat in the hotel room to cook myself back into warmth.

The Start of Something Big Day 1 - A Beagle Named Isla

With only one dog, getting out of the house was easy.  But this was not really easy in a good way.  There was actually two dog stories to perseverate over, but I'm trying not to think about the most recent one.

In 2015 I brought home a scared, confused, skinny beagle.  Her life had definitely not been good and she really wasn't even sure how to be dog.  While she always remained a bit wary, she quickly adjusted to life with me.  

She loved going on long walks (as long as it wasn't too hot or too cold).  She was good at letting me know when she had to go outside and was very quick to remind me that she was an indoor dog when she wanted back in.  

When I first got her she was a bit of odd-dog-out since Jackson and Fairbanks were a tight Team Beagle.  When Tibbit joined in 2018, Isla took on the role of matriarch - maybe reluctantly at first.  But team Beagle became Isla and Tibbit in a way I hadn't seen coming and never would have predicted.

I know lots of people bonded with their pets in the mayhem of Covid, but for me it was part of what made 2020 such a great year.  I was still working in an almost empty building on some days and I struggled to figure out how to work from home.  But once I incorporated my dogs into the routine, I found a way that worked.  The dogs loved it too.  Time on the couch, early morning walks before wretched online meetings started.  I guess I'm glad that Isla (and Tibbit) got to live through 2020.

I lost Isla on an absolutely miserable March day to hemangiosarcoma this year.  She had her spleen removed a few weeks previous and had done a remarkable job in recovery.  But just as she started to have some good days again, she soon stopped wanting to eat and started to show signs of internal bleeding.  I took her to the vet hoping for a miracle, but knowing there was likely little that could be done.

I've spent a lot of energy beating myself up over the weeks since I lost Isla.  I'm mad at myself for doing the surgery, knowing that it made her last few weeks more about the difficulty of recovery than anything else.  I also know that given what we knew at the time, surgery was the right decision.  I suppose if there is a silver lining to this it is that recovery required her to be calm and the best way to keep Isla calm was to keep her happy.  She slept in the bed with me for much of this time as she hated being kept restricted in the playpen.  She also had tons of extra attention.

I'm equally mad at myself for not doing more.  Rationally I know that letting her go was 100% the right decision.  But the world - my world - is not a good place without Isla.  When I'm working from home I keep looking over at the couch expecting her to be there; Isla loved the couch as much as any spot in the world. 

This is the first time since 1993(ish) that I've only had one dog and looking at only one dog food bowl is painful.  I don't think dogs grieve like humans, but Tibbit's behavior makes me believe she really notices the difference (even if she likes getting all the walks now).

I keep seeing Isla's cold, small frame as I had to bury her.  I think about her looking at me after her surgery.  I know these painful memories of her last few days will be replaced by the endless good memories of a beagle who's life started out really tough but became an absolutely amazing dog.  She'll get a tree if the tiny paw paw I planted last fall doesn't come back.  I know the pain of losing Isla will subside.  Since that first dog in 1993, I've had to bury eight dogs - I still miss each and every one of them.  But as I left, I just wanted Isla back - that terribly-flawed, wonderful beagle who was one of my few true friends.

"Who wants an afterlife if the immediate pre-afterlife is spent clutching the arms of a wheelchair, head bent back at a forty-five degree angle, eyes and mouth wide open and equally mute, like so many of my charges at the Woodcrest [a nursing home facility where the author works on weekends]? Is the ‘soul’ that lives forever the one we possess at the moment of death, in which case heaven must look something like the Woodcrest, with plenty of CNAs and dietary aides to take care of those who died in a state of mental decomposition? Or is it our personally best soul — say, the one that indwells in us at the height of our cognitive powers and moral aspirations? In which case, it can’t possibly matter whether demented diabetics eat cupcakes or not, because from a purely soteriological standpoint, they’re already dead.”- B Ehrenreich

And so with a bit more angst than anticipation, I headed out on the road.

Home to Marquette, IA:  564.1 miles

After allowing myself one cup of coffee and having ritual waffles, I was out the door right near sunrise, a little after 6:00AM.  Road construction near home meant going down a few of my favorite bicycle roads.  It has been a cold, wet, windy year and there hasn't been enough bicycling yet.

The previous day's rain and much cut grass made the area smell like vegetative decay.  That plus the humid, foggy conditions resulted in an uncomfortable clamminess.  I was still enjoying the ride.

Once on the interstate I headed north and west.  Getting around Indianapolis was relatively easy; the opposite direction was nearly a parking lot.  I-74 had very light traffic even barely outside of the cities.  Perhaps the recent spike in fuel prices are keeping people closer to home. 

The morning remained intensely foggy to the point that it may as well have been raining.  

I jumped off the interstate near Davenport, IA and did my best to hug the Mississippi River the rest of the day.  I continually saw signs for "The Great River Road" so I must have been doing something right.  Despite being called "The Great River Road" - much of the road actually diverts from the river.  And some of the best views are fleeting at best.  But I suppose there are enough good views to call it "The Great River Road."  Unquestionably the Mississippi River is an impressive body of moving water.

And even when away from the road, it was a really nice ride.  My route took me through lots of gentle sweeping turns, big hills.  Springtime in Iowa can only be described as verdant.  Since this was Iowa, there was lots of agriculture as well, but even this was quite pretty.  

Soon enough I made my way into Marquette and found my hotel.  It sits right across the street from the river with a small levee in the way.  I walked around the park for a bit, happy to be off the bike.

I made my way down to a convenience store for some snacks - I hadn't eaten at all through the day and was hungry enough that my purchases were quite stupid.  Actually I'll also blame Doritos for being stupid since Doritos 3D are apparently just bugles with weird seasoning.  I hate to think how much I paid for them...

Dinner back at the hotel was a noodle bowl I brought from home.  It seemed easier than going down to the casino for dinner (I assume they have a restaurant).  Besides, the casino boat looked enough like the Ozark casino boat that I didn't want to get caught in the crossfire.

I ended the day with gas station ice cream - which was a good enough way to end the day.

2022 Hog Hunt Day 4 - So It Goes

"Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year round, was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes." - Kurt Vonnegut

I woke up and had no reason to dither.  I thought about taking a shower, but even that seemed like a waste of time.  I was on the road a few minutes after 3:00.  I made my way out on the dark roads.  I saw lots of deer, but they are mostly not too stupid this time of year so they stayed where they should be.  There was quite a bit of traffic for how early it was, but the morning was still quite nice.

I was listening to The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer.  Or at least I tried to listen to it.  It jumped around and I thought it was going to be about fighting/hiding from terrorist Islamic groups.  It started out as mostly history of writing in Africa.  The description of the physical books was fascinating, but I just could not get excited about the books.  Should they be preserved from a historic perspective?  Of course, but it seemed like forcing it to make it sound like these books were centuries ahead of anything.  It is sad how little the owners cared about the books - keeping them in goat skin bags to be ravaged by water or allowing them to be eaten by termites says something about the current culture.  Character development was somewhere between unsympathetic and non-existent.  It did sound like the book would have gotten better later, but rather than skip part of the book, I think I'm better off deleting it.

Thankfully I had tons of podcasts saved -mostly Hidden Brain - many of which were really good.

The evidence of the winter storm started a little over 100 miles from camp.  South Carolina High Country looked like it got hit hard as did Central Kentucky.  Oddly, the Appalachian area didn't look like it got near as much.  The snow did make the mountains very pretty though.

I continued driving and stopped to get gas at the same gas station I usually do right off I-81.  Why oh why do I buy pickled sausage?  I question my life choices sometimes.

I think I woke up SO and her sister when I got home.  I watched my sister-in-law help SO get moved into another room.  If SO doesn't have any mountain goat (she does not), I don't have the caring gene (I do not).  I'll have to develop this.

We talked for a bit about both the current situation and a few other things before Sis-in-Law had to leave.  I am incredibly grateful for what she did for us.

I'm disappointed that my hog hunt was cut short.  Sometimes life happens.  So it goes.  At this point, I can only hope that I am prepared for the next few weeks.  It will be stressful enough that I may need something like a hog hunt after it is all over.

2022 Hog Hunt Day 3 - Ended by Tonya Harding

I woke up and had one of those - where am I - moments in the bizarre space between asleep and awake.  I love that liminal place: fear, ambiguity, texture, enigma.  As the haze was lifting, I grabbed my phone to see what time it was.  There were a ton of messages from my home security system which wasn't too surprising since I went to bed early.  There was also a text from SO, "Give me a call when you can.  I'm OK."  When someone says this, it usually means they are not.

I called and SO said that she had fallen in the garage and was at the hospital.  She had broken her knee.  Her sister was on her way down.  "I'm assuming I need to come home?" 

"I don't know, let's talk about it later."

I tried to get back asleep, but it was near the time I usually get up anyway so I just flopped around for a bit before looking back at my phone.  In my mind, it seemed serious, but not serious-serious until I looked at some of the video from the home security cameras and saw ambulances, cops, squad...

I guess it did make me feel a little better to see one of the squad guys let the dogs in and the cop lock up everything before he left.

I texted her to see if she could talk again, but didn't get a response.  Either she was busy being hospitaled, she was asleep on some marvelous pain killer, or they put her down.  I got up and tried to busy myself until I could hear back from her.  I spent too much time rewatching the videos - why the eff didn't they shut the lights off before they left?  Why is that guy parked on my lawn?  These reactions were neither pertinent nor rational.

Sitting 700 miles away miles away is somewhat helpless.  I was struck by how technology has consistently made things both better and worse at the same time.  Last year I visited my dead relatives.  In subsequent reading of letters to/from them from their first years in the US, I read about their troubles - both big and small - that they went through.  But news travelled at the pace of of boats across the ocean.  No blow-by-blow partial information.  Now, in nearly real time I could watch SO get wheeled out of the house on a stretcher.  I could worry almost as it happened, even if I couldn't really do anything.  At some level, it isn't different:  go about life until...  That "until" has moved.  When things travelled slowly for my relatives, they didn't dash off a 2 sentence letter that a knee was broken without more of the chronology.  The narrative was able to find a resting place, even if that place wasn't a good one.  This is also a false comparison at some level since the idea of driving 700 miles to hunt pigs would have been quite preposterous 100 years ago.  Besides, they had pigs on their farm.

SO and I talked and decided I would head home.  For most of the rest of the day I felt like a tool for not going home right away.  The doctor said she would be off her feet for 4-8 weeks after surgery, so it clearly wasn't a minor surgery. 

But for better or worse, I had one more evening to hunt.  After getting my annual dose of fast food, we fed stands.  The stand I had been on the previous afternoon looked like a bomb had gone off with hog activity.

Back at the lodge I mostly sat around.  I thought about reading, but didn't have the concentration.  Early afternoon we headed out for hogs.  Temperatures were wonderful in the upper 40s, but the wind was brutal.  Not only does this make it feel much colder, but it also tends to make the animals hold tight.  I was sitting on the church stand, which I like.  It was moved back into a small field from where it had previously been closer to the road.  The tripod stand was really comfortable.  Predictably, not much was moving.  I was disappointed it was my last afternoon to hunt, while at the same time I felt like an ass for not already heading home - the worst of both worlds.

Right around sunset five does came out with a buck trailing them.  It spent a while rubbing its nose on trees before heading to the corn pile.  For the remainder of the shooting light, deer sauntered in and out to the point I lost count.  There was a lot of them.  At dark:30, I unloaded and walked back to the road.

Denis had been at Sandy Bottoms and hadn't seen anything.  Claude had shot at two, but only one was recovered.  And it was about the same size as a big squirrel.  It will still be good on the rotisserie.

Back at the lodge Denis and Claude generously shared their spaghetti with me.  I packed most of my stuff up for the drive home.

2022 Hog Hunt Day 2 - A Wet Start

The four Philadelphia guys left around 2:00.  They sort of woke me up, but I was only sort of sleeping anyways since it felt like every time I moved I was Godzilla shaking Tokyo.  Once they were out, I felt a little better, but still couldn't sleep.  I got up a little later to pounding wind and rain.  I could only hope this was going to be over before afternoon pig time.

Most of my stuff was still in my truck, so it was lodge coffee and a lone granola bar.  I poked around online and read for a while.  For unknown reasons, I was feeling very anxious.  I watched a few episodes of Seinfeld followed by some of The Office.  

At some point Lisa came to clean the lodge.  I had taken advantage of a very brief window with less rain to get my stuff out of the truck, so it was a bit in the way.  So was I.  She was very thorough with the Lysol to the point that I wasn't so fond of the smell.  These are indeed strange times.

Two O'clock rolled around and it was time to head out to hunt.  I asked Rick where I was going and he originally told me a tripod, but switched to a ground blind as the wind switched in a very short amount of time.  I had been cold most of the day so I wore tons of clothes - possibly too much.  I was in a stand I had never been in before (I don't remember the name).

As I was getting situated, I saw three deer on the corn pile.  They were acting very nervous and only stuck around for five of the first 15 minutes.  But the good thing was that the rain had stopped.  It was still very drippy, but the heavy rain would have made things worse.

I tried to get a quick picture of the deer and the camera on my phone decided to try to be an impressionist painter.  While it looks kind of neat, I hope it isn't a sign the camera is dying.

The afternoon passed quickly despite not very much in the way of animals.  There was some really noisy people a few hundred yards away, but it was only really annoying for a few minutes, as well as for a bit while I waited to get picked up.  Late afternoon in the blind was actually quick pleasant with just a hint of sun.  There was some wind, but deep in the trees it was minimal.

Darkness came and I slipped out as quietly as I could.  I had to walk down the road a bit to be picked up.  At one point a truck very similar to Rick's drove by and I almost walked out to it.  I'm glad I didn't - that could have been embarrassing.

Back in camp Denis and Claude were there.  We all ate dinner and talked as best we could in English (although I did my best to at least use a few words).  I went to bed hoping for a bit of much needed sleep.