Well, I don’t know why it seems like so much effort to post in the blog? There is really so little to do, I actually just talk and it types it all out for me. But I’m always afraid it’ll become a babbling of stupidity. So please leave me a comment if you think I should be more focused in these blogs.

In case you haven’t noticed, whenever I take a journey to someplace to camp, I try to film at least 3 videos. The first and easiest of course is the campground(Julian Price Campground). The 2nd is some interesting tourist attraction nearby(Mose Cone Estate and Mast General Store), usually the reason I’m camping there. And the 3rd is a hike or outdoor activity with the boys.

Currently I’m down to just one boy, so the usual 3rd video is a bit harder to produce. My most recent set of 3 videos about camping and hiking along the Blue Ridge Parkway were pretty easy and cut and dry for video 1 and 2. But my original plan for video 3 was to do some downhill mountain trail riding on my bike. I have what I consider a fairly decent mountain bike. And I thought it would be fun to ride down the biking trails at Beech Mountain. However when I got there they had explained to me that there trails were more expert than I had thought and I needed to rent one of their bikes for $150. This did not go over very well with me, so we canceled that idea and decided I would just ride my bike on the trails around the campground. That worked for about a mile and a half while I was checking out some trails to see if they would make decent video (so I had no camera running at the time), before I hit a root, caught a stick, and went flying over the handlebars. My left leg landed on a small stump about mid thigh. The bike was literally on top of me with my right leg still attached to the pedal, and the seat pressed into my back. It would’ve made an awesome video, I thought for about 15 seconds while trying to get out from under the bike. But luckily the forest ground is fairly soft, except for those roots and stumps. So I finally untangled myself and got back up. I then realized that bending my left leg was probably not a good idea. It’s always been my philosophy that pain is the best indication of something wrong. But I was about a half to 3/4 mile from the trailer and it was Saturday evening. Luckily my bike has an incredible flashlight attached to the handlebars. So I clipped my right leg into the pedal and trying very hard not to bend my left leg, I pedaled back to the road using just one leg. Luckily a lot of it was downhill, or really just required walking. Amazingly, the leg didn’t hurt at all if I kept it straight. So I could hobble back just keeping the leg in a straight position. Once I got back to the trailer I realized something wasn’t quite right. If I pushed on my leg it would give a little where it shouldn’t which was accompanied by a lot of pain. It also was swelling up pretty seriously. So I decided to take a few aspirin and go to bed early. Maybe I’d stop at the urgent care in the morning. I actually slept pretty good, except if I rolled over on my left side, or on my right side, or moved my leg. But I stayed in bed until about 8 o’clock the next morning, which is about 3 hours past our regular get up time. On my way to take my morning shower, getting into the car required a slight bending of the leg, after trying a number of different techniques to accomplish that, we decided we would just let it hang out with the door open for the short drive to the shower house. Once we got into the shower, again just keeping the leg straight, it wasn’t really painful except for a normal deep throbbing ache that one gets when something’s wrong inside. So while taking a shower and getting most of the dirt off us from crashing in shorts and a T-shirt, I suddenly realized that my leg had this huge bruise and puffy spot that was likely a hematoma. I decided I would take a couple more aspirin, as in my medical opinion, aspirin cures everything.

The rest of the morning was having cereal for breakfast and getting the trailer ready for the road. Raising the stabilizers and hitching the trailer became a small challenge. I felt quite a bit like Chester off of Gunsmoke, hobbling around and trying to bend over without bending a leg. But we did finally get the trailer hooked up and closed up to head down the road. I somehow got my leg inside the car and set it on something so it wouldn’t move and we headed down the road. My original plan was to just drive down the parkway and try to get some decent pictures of the scenery and the views. But when I realized that the Linville Falls and campground was on the way I figured I had to stop at the falls and see if I could get a decent view of that. And I as I have said, the leg doesn’t hurt if it’s just straight and I am upright (hurt much that is). So we started to walk around the parking lot in the visitor center and reading the signs that indicated the falls was just a little ways up the path. So we started moving in that direction figuring that if it was a challenge, we would just turn around. Well of course everything in the world is never what you expect it to be. The challenge part was the “last 800 feet”. So we literally took our life in our hands climbing up and down stairs at a time when if the leg bent at the wrong time, I was going to topple over and possibly go down over the cliff into the gorge. Again now, I figured this would be a really good video, if I did go down into the gorge like that. My son Kyle has strict directions to upload any video that appears on any camera that they find on my dead body wherever and whenever they find it. So I’m covered in that manner! Stay tuned for that video !!  And give it a thumbs up please !

But we didn’t crash and burn over the cliff, we made it down the trail without aggravating the leg too much. We are really glad we did all that because now I want to go back and definitely climb down the gorge and get beneath the falls. That maybe something we can do in August as “A First Puppy Hike”. Got to get him trained quick ! So stay tuned for that one and we will be back.

It’s been exactly 3 weeks since the crash and the leg is pretty much healed up, though pushing on it from the side on the bone still causes some aching and pain. So my original diagnosis and current thoughts are still the same. That I might’ve cracked the bone along longitude, from end to end instead of across the bone. They would’ve never put a cast on my thigh, they might have given me a $200 brace to wear. But I couldn’t wear it while wearing pants, and I knew I could just keep being very careful not to stress it any further. Obviously, stressing it any further was the risk that would cause serious injury and a trip to the surgeon. So I survived. I think they’re good videos. And I hope you appreciate the death-defying things I do to produce these. Thanks so much for stopping by and listening to this gibberish. I hope you get out and have a great time with mother nature, because  we will be out there again real soon.

Rick, Dakota, Caesar (in spirit)