Fossil Hunting Trip

I volunteered to be the Fed Express for my sister. She bought a huge painting from Emily and couldn't get it in her car. It barely fit in mine. I drove up with Kelsey (she and Logan had come down to help us lay sod). I stayed the night with Kelsey and Logan on Sunday night. I got to Suzan's and delivered the painting. She and I went shopping and did some reading. On Tuesday morning, Skip, Suzan and I headed out to go fossil hunting in eastern Montana. I love the wide open spaces on the praries there. We stopped at one place and I found dinosaur bones, turtle shells and some teeth. We drove off the road and set up camp about 6pm. We had a nice dinner of soup, cheese, and crackers. The sunset was great and the weather was warm. Unfortunately, the next morning it began to sprinkle. The roads there are bentonite clay so if it rains they get slick and stick to everything. You can get stuck forever there. We hurried up and broke camp. Once we got off the dirt roads, it began to pour. We were glad we had not waited it out. Although I was sorry not to get to do another day of fossil hunting, it was nice to drive around such beautiful country. I had a great time and have a few cool fossils.

Lee on the Rogue River in IK

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>