Hike

My friend , Joyce Moore and I hiked up Scout Mountain today. (June 25, 2016)   It was so beautiful!  We took a few pictures.   We hiked up to the bench where you can see into Marsh Valley.  When I got back, Greg had picked some cherries from our tree.  So I

made a pie.

Wrist

On July 24^th, Greg was at an Optometry Convention in Jackson attending lectures to fulfill his continuing education requirements.

I went hiking in Grand Teton National Park.  It had been raining, but the rain stopped when I got to Jenny Lake. I took the shuttle boat across the lake then hiked up the beginning steep part of the trail with a long line of people.  .  A person coming down reported seeing a bear with cubs on the far side of the river. Most of the people were headed for Inspiration Point.   However, at the top of the climb, I went the other way to up the beautiful, Cascade Canyon.   It was a beautiful, perfect day.

I hiked up about 5 miles, then stopped to eat my lunch. At that point, I started back down, and decided I could go a little faster now.  That was a mistake.  I carefully placed my feet as I hiked down the steep, rather rocky trail.  Eventually the trail flattened and the trail was smooth through a wildflower adorned meadow.  As I looked up at the flowers and waterfall on the mountain, I tripped on a deviously placed rock and fell hard on both hands.

I was surprised to hit my face on the ground.  I rolled over to sit one the ground and looked down at my painful right arm.  The hand was twisted to the left.  I knew it was broken.  The other arm looked okay, but hurt a lot and I was afraid it was broken too.  My knee was bloodied and bruised. 

 I waited for someone to come by to help me.  Within one minute a man and his adult son came around the corner.  They were so kind and concerned for me.  The younger man had a splint in his first aid kit!  He splinted the arm and made a makeshift sling for me.  They asked if one of them should run down and get more help, but I was sure I could hike out okay.  The stayed with me to make sure I was okay.  Many people offered to help as I walked out.  One lady offered to lead me out on her horse, but I was afraid I couldn’t get up, or hang on because both arms were injured.

Finally we got down and took the shuttle back across the lake.  The older man drove me in my car back to Jackson as his son followed in their car.  The went 40 miles (round trip) out of their way to help me.

.

We thanked my Good Samaritins, then Greg took me to the hospital there in town.  They x-rayed both arms a told me it was a bad break and would need surgery.  They put it in a cast.  My left arm was not broken, but it was severely sprained.  It’s slowly getting better, so now I am able to type this with my left hand.

The next morning we drove home to Pocatello.  Although I had had no trouble hiking 5 miles back, the next morning I could barely walk because of the bashed left knee.

On July 31^st I had the surgery.  The wrist was shattered, one of the worst the doctor had seen.  Evidently I have osteoporosis.  They put a plate under my wrist, a pin to stabilize one of the bones, and an external fixator to hold the bones.  I will have the external hardware for six weeks. 

The doctor is very skilled, and was pleased with the alignment when he was finished.  I should get most of my function and strength back.  However he warned that I will almost certainly have arthritis in the wrist eventually.

 I started some mild finger therapy today.  I am doing great.  I’ve even been going to work.  We hired one of my friends to be my scribe at work.

Through it all, I have had very little pain.  I attribute that to the excellent splinting job so soon after I fell. 

Hopefully, be mid September the fixator will be removed, and life will gradually go back to normal.

From now on, when I go hiking, I will watch out for meadows, and I will use trekking poles!

Week with Alex's Kids

What a fun week!   Alex and Lanette went pack rafting in southern Utah, so the three kids came to stay with me.  Aedin is 12, Winrey is 9. and Cedar is 5.  There were awesome kids the entire time and we had so much fun.

These are the things we did!

Played at Brooklyn's Playground.
Went swimming at the Ross Park Water Park (twice!)
Went to the Idaho Zoo
Read books at the Library and checked some out to read. (I read several books to Cedar)
Took a magical hike up City Creek.  The trees made a tunnel, and we crossed 10 bridges over the creek.
Played Apples to Apples
Played the game of Life
Went to the Family Fun day and jumped in the bouncy houses
Went to the McKee Petting Zoo (The goats were a big hit)
Played at the Cenntenial Park  playground
Went for a walk around the neighborhood
Played at the Outer Limits arcade and indoor playground. (Also a big hit)
Made Cookies
Watched "Flight of the Navigator" (a movie)
Watched "Matilda" (Another movie)
The kids practiced steering the car in the church parking lot.  (With my foot on the brake pedal.)
And of course just played at our house!

Mt Rushmore

Mt Rushmore July 4, 2015

"What do you want to do this weekend?" I asked.

Greg  thought a moment, then I suggested, "We could go to Mt Rushmore."  Greg has always wanted to go there.

 "We could!" he responded. 

So a few days later we began our 1500 mile road trip!  I was using my brand new blue suitcase.  It worked great.

We brought ice chests with snacks and breakfast items so we could get an early start each day.  That is always the goal, but on vacation, we never seem to get away very early.

It was a bright sunny morning as we drove east through the mountain passes.  The unusually high rainfall of the last few months covered the mountains in emerald green velvet dotted with sunny yellow flowers and bright blue penstemon.  The sky was intensely blue with huge puffy white clouds.


After a couple of hours, we crossed the border into Wyoming.  When we came this way last year, the area was very dry and desolate, although I enjoyed seeing the scoured cliffs and rugged terrain with its distinctive layers of colors and textures.  But this year it was green!  The whole way through the state was lush with green grass from the rains.  There are many small oil wells everywhere.  You can usually see several in every direction.

We stopped for a little while at Martin's Cove, the site of an encampment by the Mormon handcart. pioneers during their trek to Salt Lake City.  There was a nice little museum there where volunteers presented the history of the site.   There were handcarts that people could use on a trail to the actual cove to see what it would be like for the pioneers.








After about 10 hours of driving, we finally pulled into our motel in Casper, Wyoming.  We went to Olive Garden for dinner then drove over for a short, rather late night visit with Tracey and her family.  It was fun to see their two beautiful little girls and one of the boys.  (The other one was in bed.)  I feel like I know them because I see them on facebook.  There were very solemn because they don't know me, but so sweet.

The next day we drove across the border into South Dakota!  We were excited because we have never been to this state before.  In fact, I've never been that far east before.  I had always pictured South Dakota as being like Wyoming, dry and desolate.  But I was completely wrong.  It was green and beautiful with long grass and winding rivers through pine tree covered small mountains.

From the road we saw the Chef Crazy Horse Monument.   It is very slowly being carved out of the mountain.  Perhaps in a hundred years it may be finished.  It will be several times the size of Mt Rushmore.



  As we got closer to Mt Rushmore, the mountains turned into stone spires and towering rocks in fantastic shapes.  We came around the corner, and there it was!

We parked in the underground parking area.  There were many, many people coming into the park, and we  heard many different languages.  It was a very hot day.  We walked up to the entrance where the walkway is framed by flags from every state.  We found the Idaho flag.

We stopped to rent the devices for the audio tour.  We held them to our ears to hear more information about how the site was created, and why they selected each president.

There was a short hike on a boardwalk that took us closer to the mountain.  It was mostly shady from the pine trees - which was good, because it was at least 90 degrees.  We were wearing cooling ties around our necks.  You get them wet and they help keep you cool.  There were some clouds that floated over for a little while and we even got a few drops of rain.

After the hike, we were very hot, so we went into the theater to watch the movie about Mt Rushmore.  It was nice and cool in there.  So refreshing!  And the movie was interesting.

We visited more exhibits and bought some postcards.  We saw the models the artist used to design the mountain.  The used a simple plumb-bob and careful measurement of the model.  Then they n scaled it up 12 times to create the sculptures on the mountain.  Most of the "carving' was done by precise dynamite.



















As we were leaving, we saw 4 Presidential actors who were also leaving! 

Greg had hoped to see fireworks over the statues, but they don't do that any more.
 


This is what the mountain looked like before they carved it.













The next day we drove back over the border  to Devil's Tower.

  It is also in a forest of pine trees. It was huge!  It's hard to realize how huge until you see the climbers on it.  We saw about 6 or 7 people climbing the tower. We took the hike around the tower.

It is a sacred place to some Indian tribes, and cloth ribbons are hung from the trees as prayers or offerings.  There are signs asking that you not disturb them.  The Indians anciently called this place "Bear Lodge."  There are legends about it.

Scientist believe that deep underground, lava extruded upward then cracked into the columns.  Eventually the land around it was eroded away. 




After leaving Devil's Tower we drove toward our next destination.

I can't remember exactly where this was, but we stopped to see a beautiful waterfall.  It's rare, because it is one of a few waterfalls created by a fault zone.

















We went through switchbacks up the green, piney mountain.  The clouds were flowing down into the valley.


We got closer to the cloud, then drove into it.  For about 30 minutes we were in dense fog.  We were grateful for the car ahead of us because we could see his taillights which warned Greg  which way to turn next as we drove up the winding roads of the mountain.  When we finally came down out of the cloud, the land had flattened.








We went though another little valley and saw a curious formation ahead.  It was like a miniature Devil's Tower.  It turned out to be Chimney Rock.  We took a picture then continued on to Cody, Wyoming for the night.  We stayed in "The Cowboy Motel."  Each room was in it's own log cabin.  But although it was rustic outside, it was very nice inside with a very comfortable king-sized bed. There were cowboy hats and boots on the wallpaper in the bathroom.










Cody is just outside Yellowstone National Park.  The next morning we got up and drove to the entrance of the park. We were given a brochure warning about wild animals.   I remember last time I was at Yellowstone we saw a man approaching a herd of buffalo to get a photo.  He climbed down the embankment and approached one bull.  It began snorting, but he still approached.  I told Greg to drive away from there because I didn't want to see someone get gored!  I actually watched the news for a few days to see if anyone was killed in Yellowstone! (They weren't)

I was sad to see many dead trees, victims of a forest fire.   We drove thought a long tunnel and came out near a large lake.









As we drove on it became greener. Finally we came to a place where the ground was densely covered with small ( 8 - 16 foot) pine trees which had grown after the huge fire a decade ago. Most of the park is now recovered with this thick growth of new trees.  We took the more northern route through the park because we haven't gone that way for a long time.  We  drove to the Yellowstone falls and took some pictures.






We stopped to walk out to see deep, clear, colorful hot springs, geysers, and mud pots.  There were signs, warning us to stay on the trail.  Some of the hot springs had colorful mats of flaming orange bacteria in fantastic patterns.


At one geyser the spray went over the trail.  We ran though the hot water.





























































We saw lots of wild animals including a herd of buffalo and their calves, and an elk herd with their fawns.

 In one place many people had parked and were looking at something.  We finally found a place to pull over and I walked back to see what it was.  I was trying not to get in the way of anyone's photo because I thought they were looking down into a little glen so I walked near some bushes.  The low bushes moved, as if a rabbit was in there.  Suddenly a park ranger appeared said it was a mother grizzly bear and two cubs, and ordered everyone to get back in their cars.  I had probably been 10 feet from the cub.  I immediately turned to go back to my car, but Greg was further back and watched for just a moment more and saw the little bear poke his head out of the bushes.















At another place, many people were using binoculars to look as something on the other side of a small hill.  The cars were just creeping along because there had also been an accident on the road.

I finally got out of the car, walked quickly up to the hill, and took a picture.  When I looked back at the road, our car had passed me.  I ran to catch  up and got back in the car.   It turned out that it was another grizzly with two cubs.  They were far away, but when I enlarged the photo, I could see the bear.




We finally got to geyser basin.  We took one of the boardwalk trails and saw more geysers.   As we were coming back,  we saw the people gathering to wait for Old Faithful to erupt.  We were hungry and hot, so we went into the cafeteria and found a table overlooking the geyser.  So we watched it from inside.

After that, it was getting late, and we had a long drive to get home, and we had to go to work the next day.  So we got in the car and Greg drove home. 

It was a fun trip we will always remember.