Vertigo Limit

This post is the first of three about a road trip I took the first week in June. It is now a little out-dated after the events of mid-June (see Well, Crap...). However, I decided to leave it as I was originally writing it. Think of it as a flashback. (c:

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May was a stressful month. I wrote in my last post about my frustrations with my job and a few other things. It's straight up disappointing to think a difficult season will be resolved, only to find it still lingering and its complexity increasing. I knew I would be fine. I knew that even if my plans are ruined, I am not ruin. Things will come together into one shape or another. Hang in there.

Despite knowing better, the toxic doubts and questions continued, and my attitude festered. I even wonder if part of the reason I was so stressed was because, after 10 years of teaching, that's just how my body responds to May. But whatever the root cause, I was not in a good head space.

So, I drove to Colorado.

This was a quasi-spontaneous move. Quasi because I'd decided a couple weeks before that I just needed to go. Spontaneous because I made no real plans and decided my departure date only a day or two before. Too much was - and is - up in the air to coordinate anything extensive.

Since this was a quick trip, I had much less stuff with me.
The extra space seemed to make everything seem messier somehow.

Spending my first night near the Kansas/Colorado border, I woke early, ready for the mountains! I intended to meander my way to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, in the southwest portion of the state. I wasn't sure if I'd get there that night or the next day, but it didn't matter. That, after all, is part of the fun!

Reaching the eastern suburbs of Colorado Springs, I was suddenly overwhelmed with an all-to-familiar feeling of disorientation. Grateful to be in a town, I pulled over at a Safeway and went inside to sit in their cafe. It was the first real attack of vertigo I'd had in ages and I was frustrated.

To back up a little, I know that I have mentioned having vertigo in previous posts, but I don't believe I ever described what it's like. For me, it's not an inner ear problem, so I don't struggle with feeling wobbly or off-balance. My vertigo is the result of a miscommunication between my eyes and my brain. The seizure scrambled the circuits somehow, so some types of visual information are hard to process and leave me feeling disoriented or dizzy. When it was at it's worse, I got double vision and felt crummy for days. Now my only persistent symptom is fatigue. It makes me sooo tired.

Between physical therapy and the healing passage of time, dizziness isn't much of an issue any more. However, I do have to be mindful of certain triggers. For example, looking at a fixed point while other things are moving nearby. This includes reading text online while a video plays on another part of the screen. It also includes, as I realized that day in Colorado, staring ahead at the distant horizon while the prairie speeds past the sides of your car.

via GIPHY

Fortunately, the worst of the dizziness passed quickly. I still felt groggy, but experience told me that wasn't going away any time soon. I stopped again about an hour later in one of the western suburbs of Colorado Springs and started working out a firmer plan for the next couple days. Finally in the mountains - yay! - the inherent variety of the winding roads seemed to be less of a vertigo trigger, but I was still wary. Once the dizziness starts, it doesn't take much to keep it going.

Deciding I was good to go, my next stop was the Florissant Fossil Beds. It was a good stretch of the legs.

A big petrified redwood stump officially named The Big Stump.

That afternoon, I wove my way through the mountains, pausing briefly in Buena Vista and Gunnison. Part of me wanted to stay longer in these towns, but ultimately I decided to continue. I felt much better than earlier, but anticipating the fatigue that always follows, I wanted to get the driving done and treat myself to a day off.

Outside of Gunnison, the mountains opened up, the road following the Gunnison River and the Curecanti National Recreation Area. There were lots of pretty overlooks and a clear view of the expected afternoon storm cells as they formed.

Storm's a brewin' over the Gunnison River

I arrived at Black Canyon about an hour and a half before sunset. I'd chosen to go to the north rim, the more remote and less-visited section of the park. Always helpful, the park ranger (whom I met when he came out of the bushes carrying a high-tech bow and at least six arrows) told me I was there at good time to check out the Chasm View.

Taking his suggestion, I cheerfully made my way down the short path. Suddenly, the trees opened up revealing a spectacular view! I quite seriously almost fell over upon seeing the canyon. For the first time I understood why vertigo is also the term for a fear of heights.

I'm not a fearless daredevil, but I've never really had a problem with heights. This really caught me off guard. Resisting the urge to just lay on the ground, I realized it was less the height, and more the optical illusion of it all. Reminding myself anything that makes me dizzy can become physical therapy, I made myself look, for maybe ten seconds at a time.

I soon calmed down enough to take pictures, but I wasn't exactly relaxed. Holding my phone in a trembling, two-handed death grip, I am amazed that the camera was able to focus.

Main overlook on the North Rim.
Painted Wall is located just below the sunset.

Same location, looking east.

After a refreshing night's sleep, the next morning, I hiked to Exclamation Point and the summit of Green Mountain. It was lovely and at a good level of difficulty for my return to mountain hiking. Neither too strenuous nor too easy. It was good to be out.

Explorations at Exclamation Point

Exclamation Point!!
(Once, in my mid-twenties, I spent an evening trying to find out the female equivalent
 of the phrase "phallic symbol". I learned a lot that night, but not the answer to my question.
 Today, "phallic female equivalent word" autofills in Google and immediately
 reveals the answer as "yonic". Mystery solved)

From the top of Green Mountain

Looking south from Green Mountain

Returning to the trail head, I felt good. Ready for more. After a bit to eat and a little rest, I was game to explore more. But as I sat, the fatigue hit. Although I didn't feel dizzy at any point in the hike, I had apparently reached my limit. So, instead of exploring another trail, I decided to take a nap, then check out the overlooks along the north rim road.

A determined little tree along the North Rim

My plan worked well, the views were all gorgeous and captivating, but by the time I reached the western end of the road, I was done. I just wanted someplace to sit and do nothing else. Unfortunately, there weren't any picnic tables around, and it was still a little too early to go to my campsite for the night. I ended up parking along the road and taking another nap in my car. Eventually, enough time passed, I made my way to my campsite for the night.

After enjoying a tasty white bean soup for dinner, I fell asleep quickly. It was about an hour until sunset, but I did not care. My vertigo-induced fatigue is very similar to jet-lag. I'll be sleepy but going along fine until suddenly there's no possible way to stay awake any longer. Sleep always wins.

Sagebrush and wildflowers

About an hour later, I awoke to the sound of birds singing in the twilight. I also heard a few of them scratching around on my car. I lifted my head to see what they were up to, but the sound stopped. Thinking nothing of it, I lay back down. A few minutes later, the scratching returned. This time it seemed to be coming from underneath my car, like maybe some burrowing critter was scrabbling around under there.

With images of mischievous birds and rodents in my head, I was quickly dozing off again. Suddenly, I sat bolt upright. Something had run across my head!

Heart racing, I grabbed my book and headlamp to read until I calmed down. Given my hypnagogic state at the time of the incident, I was convinced it was all in my imagination. Nevertheless, the adrenaline rush was 100% and sleep would not be returning quickly.

As I made my way through the pages of P.G. Wodehouse, the scrabbling sound returned, only now it sounded like it was coming from next to me. I looked over, and there was a mouse! It's ears and whiskers were clearly silhouetted by the last traces of sunlight. Beyond being startled at this point, we stared at each other a moment, then it dove down into my belongings and I went to open the car door.

I quickly checked and secured the items I believed to be most tempting to a mouse and was relieved to find no damage. In my search, I saw its tan little body two more times before it disappeared up under the dashboard. Realizing I had zero chance of chasing it out of my car that night, I honked my horn in an attempt to scare it and went to bed. It'd been at least 20 minutes since I'd been startled awake and the adrenaline effect was gone.

I didn't hear or see the mouse again that night or in the morning. Fairly confident it had gained access by crawling up from underneath, I parked my car in sunny places in a effort to make the mouse uncomfortable enough to leave, if it hadn't already. This seemed to have worked. I never heard or saw (or smelled!) anything else from it again.

(Epilogue: When I returned to Columbia and was cleaning out my car, I found the beginnings of a mouse nest when I put the seats back to upright. It really was right under me!)

From the South Rim

The day after the mouse-capade, I drove around to the South Rim of the canyon. It was, of course, gorgeous and spectacular. I preferred the solitude of the North Rim, however. The South Rim is the more accessible side, meaning it had a lot more visitors and tourists. There are advantages to not being completely antisocial. The most notably on this trip was that I ran into Jon Mesh, a friend from college! I felt bad because our shouts of recognition messed up his son, who was busy counting steps at the time. A small price to pay for a fun surprise.

That afternoon, I treated myself to a paid campsite so that I could have access to a picnic table. Still exhausted from the previous couple days, I took a long nap under a tree. I even saw a raptor bird that I hesitantly identified as a falcon.

I would have loved to have taken one of the routes down into the inner canyon, but given how tired just being there made me, it was easily the right choice not to go. Maybe if I'd had a reliable companion, but definitely not as things stood. So, after another night of nearly comatose sleep, I packed up and pointed my car east.

More about that leg of my trip soon!