Pictures

Triathalon
Rainie Falls on the Rogue River
The Cabin with the Grandkids

Recovery and Rivers

We had a great family outing at the Burley Idaho Spudman Triathalon. Logan, Justin and I participated in the 1 mile swim (my wave was cancelled due to a drowning of one of the swimmers ahead of us), a 26 mile bike race, and a 6 mile run. The whole family was there with the exception of Clay and Brittany who had to work but did include my sister Suzan. After the race, we attended the Twin Falls Temple Open House. The grandkids were really reverent and it was such a beautiful building. Parker, Dallin, and Landon are below on the Temple steps. After the two nights, the girls were joined by Brittany and we traveled to Boise to stay at the Marriott there by the river. We went floating down the Boise River, (where I broke every boating rule I know), accidentally popping the raft Kelsey was in, seeing river otters, eating licorice , and laughing our heads off. We went to the play "Oklahoma" at an outdoor theater in the mountains and just had fun talking, eating and hanging out. My sister Suzan, daughters Ashley, Kelsey, Staci, Brittany and I all had a blast.[Photo]Ric is continuing to get better. At his last doctor appt. he was given permission to start putting weight on his leg. He has begun physical therapy and is relentless in his persistence for recovery. Last night we went to a wedding reception and he only used one crutch. He is getting stronger, today he even washed a couple of pans for me. Yeah...a first in 8 weeks. I am stoked and so is he. ( Not about the dishwashing however.) We completed the cement work in the yard and now we are getting the sprinkling system in. Somehow, our yard has grown since we bought it. It looks much, much larger. I am wondering who will be mowing and doing the weeding. I really hope it is not me. We built a deck while Ric was been broken and we really appreciate all the kids did to help with it. Ric even sat and a stool and drilled in nails. I learned to drill those long screws in too and did a pretty good job I must say. With Ric in recovery, I did the Rogue River in Ore. without him. I missed him the whole way because he would have loved it as much as I did. The mountains there are spectacularly green and lush with streams and little waterfalls everywhere. The water is cool and clear. It was hot and the water felt great to cool off. The river was class III and two IV's. I think one of the IV's was a III and I paddled that in my IK (inflatable kayak). I took one swim. Mostly because I loaded my boat stupidly and after I removed the ballast in front had no further problems. I hate to swim, but felt better when the other IK paddlers took their turn at least once. I didn't paddle Blossom Bar and just rode in the raft with Nancy Seamons. There have been 2 deaths there this season and I didn't want to stress out Nancy. She rowed it perfectly. It was lots of fun. We hiked, swam, ate, jumped off rocks into clear streams and used water cannons to spray passengers on the motor boat cruises on the lower part of the trip (they started it and finished it too when the boat put the stern toward us and gunned the jets, totally dousing us with a rooster tail of water). It was a great river.Last Friday, I did a quick day trip with Nancy on the Westwater section of the Colorado. It is III's and IV's too. I just was a ballast the first section with the rapids. I was thinking as we were flawlessly sailing through the rapids that I was going to have to go with less experiences rafters in order to see carnage. At Sock it to Me rapid, Nancy's oar hit a rock and popped out, we were swept in the wave train to "Magnetic Rock" and pinned against the rock. The raft started to flip while Nancy was struggling to get the oar in place. I yelled "High side!" so we threw ourselves on the edge of the tube and were able to keep upright while we pushed the raft slowly off the rock. One of the boats, came down and bumped us off at the end so all ended nicely but it was a thrill for a moment. I rowed the last 10 miles which was good experience for me since we are acquiring a new raft in Sept. I am excited to get Ric and I out there. I envision Ric rowing with all kinds of gear and me paddling along in a kayak. Sounds great, huh?!
draft

Making Progress

It's been three weeks since my crash and I thought a brief update wuld be in order. I had my first follow-up visit with the doctor last Tuesday. He looked at the xrays and said things were looking good. I have 2 very cool screws and a neat metal plate in there! He said the bone had not moved which is a good. And although I have another 5 weeks on the crutches with no weight bearing on my hip, I did get the okay to begin some exercises to help restrenghten my hip flexors, and abductor muscles. He even told me that I could begin a stationary bike, peddling with the left leg and allowing the right to just turn to reintroduce that motion. YeeHaa! He also removed the staples in the incisions. Anyway, I am doing well thanks to my wonderful family and great supportive friends. I love you all.

Turn? What Turn?

Lee did a great job of recapping the injury I sustained last Saturday while riding the MS 150. I thought I would just attached some details of what happened. So here goes. I had just left a rest stop at about the 60 mile mark, feeling great and riding strong. I took off by myself looking forward to a good finish. The road took a slight turn to the right and began a small downhill decent. There were several riders to my immediate left as we reached the bottom of the hill when with very little warning I noticed the blue arrow on the road indicating we were to turn left. I shouted that we needed to turn left and think that I touched my brakes to slow. But almost at the same instant, I heard someone from off my right shoulder. I don't know where he came from. I suspect he was on my wheel and did not react to the turn command but there he was and then I felt the pavement and heard my head, thankfully well protected by my helmet, crash down too. I think I knew immediately that I had broken my hip. I chose to lie there for a moment and collect my thoughts. Fortunately for me a good Samaritan stopped to lend assistance. He was actually supporting his wife who was riding and happened to be near the accident site. After a few seconds I asked for help to my feet where I was able to confirm that indeed my hip was not willing to take any weight. Now I've been told several times since that day that a rational person would have called 911 for assistance at this point. I've never considered myself as irrational, stubborn maybe, but not irrational. So with some discomfort, read pain, I managed to lift myself into this man's truck for a ride to the hospital. Strangely enough the course official instructed us to return to the rest stop before going to the hospital so I could sign an incident report. We waited at the stop for about 5 minutes when another official approached to tell us that the SAG vehicle would not be coming because were down the hill at accident! You guessed it. The same hill where I had crashed! So we proceeded back to the site where 911 had been called and an EMT was on scene, signed the form, and then headed off to the Logan Hospital. I will be forever grateful for my good Samaritan who saw me battered and bruised and gave me help.

Pictures of Ric and his hip.

Ric is being loaded for shipping to Murray Intermountain hospital. What a trooper!

His good hip (xray) Upper left

His broken hip (xray) Upper right

Sorry no picture of the repair with screw and metal plate.

Ric is doing well for being broken. He is on crutches and a little slow but can get around. We are happy for that! Its the small things in life>

An unexpected end to a bike ride

I had a been off on great trip to see my sister and Kelsey...I even took my sister on a commercial trip going down the Gallitan River. It has some 3's and one 4 but the water was too high to do the 4. It was a lot of fun and Suzan said she understood why I like it. Enjoyed Kelsey too...we went to see Wally which was funand prepared for a surprise birthday party for Logan. On Saturday morning however, I got a call from Ric who was doing the MS century ride in Logan. He had been taken out by a cyclist (of course the cyclist got up and rode away) and Ric had broken his hip. Ric being a guy and a little too macho didn't call 911 for an ambulance and accepted a ride in a truck to the hospital which amazed the ER staff and firemen paramedics alike. A broken hip is really painful. I drove right to the ER in Logan, getting there by 2pm (Ric had gone down about 10:15). The surgeon got there about 3 pm and after looking at the xrays and taking a CT scan, decided to send him to Murray's Intermountain Hospital to a Orthopedist that does more complex injuries. We had to wait 3 hours for a bed to be free before they would transport us then Ric went by ambulance and we arrived about 8:30 pm. We were taken to his room where we waited until 3 am for the doctor. They had a big trauma case and it took him that long to finish, They decided to wait until morning...of course the hospital being a major trauma hospital ended up swamped with traumas and we waited until 6:30 pm for an orderly to wheel Ric to the OR. We were all frustrated by then and worried about the bone staying alive without a blood supply. We didn't see anyone until 6 hours later when the surgeon came out. Good news (I guess) is he was able to put the neck of the femur back together with wire, two screws, and a metal plate. Since the bone ends were splintered and not a clean break there is some chance for it not to heal right or even survive. Recovery will be long and slow probably, but Ric had some good blessings where he was promised to recover completely. A good miracle would be nice about now. This of course changes our summer plans...he will not be doing the Spudman triathlon with the family, doing the Ulcer century ride with Nathan, the boat trip with me or the LotoJa 206 mile bike ride with his buddies among other things. It is pretty disappointing but Ric is such a positive non- whiny guy. He is a real trooper and I am lucky to be nurse and wife to such a great example. We have lots of prayers and well wishs from our friends and family and we really appreciate it. I am all about miracles...our family has had many in the past so I would love Ric to surprise the doctors with an incredible recovery. He does so much for others and he has so much he wants to do especially for his Young Men in our ward. We will keep you updated. I will add pictures soon.

Yampa's Warm Springs Rapid