Trippin'

CAMP TRIPPIN'

I like to go to one new camping spot each year. We debated between going down the Pahsimeroi Valley or in the mountains west of Leadore. Ultimately, we decided on going to the Big 8 Mile Creek west of Leadore. We went for 2 days during the last week of July. Josh and Ammon brought their motorbikes (Ammon recently purchased one for himself that's similar to Josh's), the younger 3 boys brought their bikes, and I brought stuff to do at the campsite. It took about an hour and a half to get there, and since we went in the middle of the week, there were only two other campsites that were occupied! We got a nice large spot close to the creek.

The creek was beautiful, and the boys walked along it and found different outlets (or inlets?) to the stream. It was shallow, too, so I wasn't worried about them when they wandered off several times. I felt calm having the sound of water so close, too!

For dinner, we ate tinfoil dinners over charcoal. After dinner was done cooking, we used the hot coals again to make banana boats. We had some when we went camping the previous month with our Perkins cousins, and we wanted to try them again. The boys tried a variety of toppings last time, but they didn't like the mini marshmallows because the marshmallows just melted and you couldn't taste them. This time, I only used chocolate and white chocolate chips to stuff the bananas. Josh didn't try one, but the rest of us did and we just loved them! I think the taste was much better this time around, and we look forward to trying them again in the future with different flavored chips inside.

After we started a campfire that night, everyone got to work making their favorite campfire treat. Some roasted large marshmallows (I just love a perfectly brown and puffy marshmallow!) and placed them in fudge-striped cookies for a S'more, and everyone cooked Starbursts on a stick (Josh hates marshmallows so the roasted Starbursts are always a must while camping). I bought the bag that only had red colors (I'm so glad that's an option now), which was awesome!! We all like the pink and red ones (nobody ever wants the yellow!), and everybody roasted all 4 flavors to determine which was their favorite.

SIDE TRIPPIN'

There were many trailheads near the campground, and Josh and Ammon were happy to go exploring on them using their motorbikes. They went on several rides both days we were camping.

Josh took his smart phone with him, and used the camera on it to capture some of the places they went to. They went on 4 trails and saw 4 different mountain lakes (Stroud, Everson, Dairy, and Yellow). He figures they went about 50 miles total on their motorbikes, and he seriously loved EVERY second of it. He was so happy every time he came back to the campground and showed us what he'd seen on their ride! He liked having a riding buddy, too, for the first time. Ammon liked riding his new dirt bike in the mountains, as well! I'm glad we went to a campsite that had so many options for them to explore on their motorbikes!

There was a large patch of snow on one of the mountains,
so Josh made a snow angel in it on the last day of July!!

While they were gone, we hung out around camp. The boys rode bikes, explored the ditch, played football, chopped dead wood they'd find, and made huge fires with all their sticks. 

TRIPPIN' OVER THE EDGE

On the 2nd day of our camp, Josh and Ammon came back from riding to eat lunch with us. Then it was time to start packing up camp to go back home because Josh & Ammon had some lawns to mow, and Josh had some things he had to do at work at the golf course. And for the first time since arriving at camp, I left our campsite--but only for about five minutes to go to the nearby outhouse. When we'd arrived at the campground the day before, the septic tank truck was there cleaning the outhouse, and man it stunk up the air everywhere around us!!! But I knew the outhouse would be smelling good the next day, so I waited until then to go. As I was walking back to our campsite after going to the nice-smelling outhouse, I could see Ammon and Jonah in the back of the truck maneuvering Ammon's motorcycle. I thought it was weird that Josh wasn't helping Ammon do that. As I got closer, I could see Josh was just getting up from the ground, and he was covered in dirt on one side. When I got to the campsite, Micah yelled "Where were you, mom?!" I told him I had to use the bathroom, but I couldn't understand why he was so upset when I was just gone for 5 minutes. Apparently something did happen in those FIVE minutes, which was also the ONLY time I ever left the camp site!!!

Josh had decided to start loading the motorbikes after I told him I was going to the bathroom. He got the metal ramp and attached it to the bed of the truck. Our truck has a lift kit on it, and it's quite high. It looked pretty steep to him, and he considered parking the truck in a lower spot to make it easier to load the bikes, but he decided against that. Ammon had been riding his motorbike around the campground for a few minutes, so Josh decided to load Ammon's bike first since the engine was already running. As he drove up the ramp, the front wheel made it into the truck, but the ramp fell off just as the back tire was getting in the truck. This catapulted Josh up into the air, and since the truck was already higher due to its lift kit, he was about 10 feet up from the ground. He landed on the ground on his right shoulder, followed by the rest of his body, face-first. All the boys were right by and watched it happen, and Micah let out a blood-curtling scream because he thought Josh was dead. Josh was still conscious and coherent, but he had the wind knocked out of him. He tried to get Micah to stop screaming. Then he lay still for a few minutes and finally started getting up. That's when I arrived back at our campsite.

ROAD TRIPPIN'

After Micah yelled at me for being gone, Josh said to me "I think I broke my collar bone". He'd broken it once before in a motorcycle wreck when he was a teenager, and it felt very similar to that time. I thought he was joking. I had no idea how he could've possibly broken a bone in the 5 minutes I'd been gone. I took a few things from our lunch into the trailer, took some deep breaths, then came back out to hear what had happened. At this point, he was in a lot of pain, and he couldn't move his right arm at all without severe pain. The boys helped me pack up the trailer, I moved the truck to a lower spot and had Ammon safely load Josh's motorbike into the back of it, then we hitched up the trailer to the truck and I began the long drive back to Salmon. I've never driven the truck before while pulling the long camping trailer, and I was so nervous. We had to drive very slowly for the first 15 miles until we got back to paved road, because the dirt road was so bumpy and uneven that it hurt Josh every time we went over any kind of bump in the road.

When we finally got back to Salmon, I took Josh to the E.R. and filled out all their paperwork. Then I drove the boys home, dropped them off and came back to town in the car to do some work errands for Josh at the golf course, then I went back to the E.R. to see how he was doing. By this time, he'd been checked in, had an X-ray done, and the Dr. was talking to him.

Apparently, he hadn't broken his collarbone, instead, he'd pulled his A/C ligament that connects his collar bone to the shoulder bone. The Dr. said usually there isn't surgery done to heal this type of injury; it usually heals itself in 3-6 weeks, but it's very painful healing. So the nurse helped him put his arm in a sling, and I picked him up from the hospital and took him home. Once we got home, he showed me how to unhook the camping trailer, and Ammon helped me hook up the mowing trailer. Then I drove Ammon & Josh back to town in the truck to help them mow their clients' lawns.

It's been over 3 weeks, and his shoulder is slowly healing. He couldn't lift his arm for about a week after, but now he's able to lift it and maneuver it. It was very hard for him to not be able to do things that he's accustomed to doing himself, but it's been good for me and Ammon to pick up the slack and learn how to do things, too! He never once missed a day of work, although he's very sore and in a lot of pain every night. We used ice packs on it for the first ten days, but now he's using a lot of heat packs and I rub Icy Hot on it in the evenings.

TRIPPIN' DEFINED: all bent out of shape!!

His disconnected collar bone has created a bump on his right shoulder, and is totally visible from the outside. He also has 3 bumps on the back of his neck from straining so much. So far, he hasn't seen the Orthopedic Surgeon, and he's hoping that he doesn't need to.

See how his right shoulder is now disfigured compared to the left shoulder?

Look at that bump on the right from the collar bone sticking up!!

It's sad to think that he rode 50 miles on steep, rocky terrain without getting an injury, but he goes to load the motorcycles into the back of the truck and THEN gets hurt! He definitely learned a few lessons in this process, though: 1. his body is getting older, 2. take the time to move the truck to a lower location while loading motorcycles because the few extra minutes is totally worth it, and 3. don't do anything stupid while your wife is gone for 5 minutes!