2013/08/02 - Willamette River
2013/08/02 - Lobby of one of the University of Oregon buildings
2013/08/03 - Striking tree in the UO student housing
2013/08/03 - Jaws of Death - Demolishing a building near UO
2013/08/04 - Trek Travel guide introduces our Trek Domane 5.9 bikes - part 1
2013/08/04 - Trek Travel guide introduces our Trek Domane 5.9 bikes - part 2
2013/08/04 - Dust Devil on the Pumice Desert

Trek Travel Crater Lake bicycle vacation - Day 1
Trek Travel Crater Lake bicycle vacation - Day 2

Crater Lake, Rim Drive

Excited to be heading to Oregon to bicycle Crater Lake, we rose at 5am, took Park, Ride & Fly like usual and made our 8:30 flight with no issues. We had a 46 minute layover in Salt Lake City, then flew on into Eugene. We added a few days in Eugene before meeting with Trek Travel so we could acclimate to the elevation. Guess we should have checked the stats since Eugene is closer to sea level than Dallas!

We arrived in Eugune hungry since airlines don't feed people much any more but armed with Tom Denton's list of places to visit in Eugene and some tips from Joe, the shuttle driver from our hotel (the Inn on the 5th), we planned a lunch trip while heading to our room to drop off luggage.

The Inn itself is stunning, beautiful Japanese style carpeting lining the halls with forest green to white gradation behind red cherry blossoms. The room had a lock box next to it which we found out was a cabinet on the inside, probably a place to put room service. The bathroom had an amazing shower with Grohe fixtures and frosted translucent walls and a huge rain shower head.

We got stuck in the elevator since it had a funny card you had to hold up to a circular black disc in the wall with no instructions. Eventually held at just the right angle, a green light came on and you could push the button to go to your floor. Later, we met another couple who had the same issue with the elevator. Nice first impression of the Inn was a panic attack being stuck in the elevator. The door wouldn't even open without the magic card sequence.

Despite being hungry, a Keurig coffee maker awaited so we decided to try it out before going to lunch. Water in fancy glass bottles nearby made Anne think it was intended for the coffee maker so she attempted to pour it in but spilled it all over. The Green Mountain coffee wasn't that great and not too hot either, so we gave up and went out for lunch.

Taking Tom up on one of his restaurant suggestions, we went to the Keystone Cafe for lunch. Bikes lined the sidewalk outside, a mural of puffy clouds in an azure sky covered the ceiling, and artwork for sale lined the walls. There was outside seating among large trees but we opted to stay inside since we had brought the backpack and still had jeans on so we were a bit warm. The food was amazing: a salmon burger with avocado for Anne, pan-fried pollenta with mushroom gravy & stir-fried vegetables for Stewart. Very organic and healthy, and the self-serve coffee was good too.

Temperatures were in the 70s so as we left the Keystone, we thought we'd take a wide detour into the hills nearby to hike back to our hotel through the park, but soon found that wearing jeans and hauling a backpack up a steep hill in the late afternoon sun was too sweaty even for Texans. So we opted to return to room and switch to shorts and reduce the load.

On the way back we saw several bicycle messengers with heavy cargo loads. Some bikes were uprights, some recumbant, and all carrying piping as though construction projects are done by bicycle here. Amazing!

Now in shorts, and without the backpack, we found the Willamette River and hiked the North Bank Trail, with cyclists whizzing past regularly. The river was beautiful. We could have spent the rest of the day watching the current of the river gushing through the rocks with feather grass-like vegetation growing on the shallower areas, near stacks of rock art-work.

But we hiked on, heading south to the University of Oregon campus. Loud duck quacks greeted us every where (okay maybe grackles with an Oregon accent). At first we thought they were people with duck calls. You could tell the locals from the visitors because the locals have fenders on their bikes. The campus was beautiful, heavily treed, with pockets of flowers getting plenty of water. Students and parents zig-zagged the grounds, either summer students or newcomers on tours. Can't imagine how crowded it must be when school is in session.

We stopped to check out the map and a student gave us great tips. We entered the Willamette Hall entrance totally unprepared for the grand arching foyer with beautiful artwork on the stairwell, and sweeping silver fronds reaching toward the many skylights. Seriously, they do physics here??

From there we walked to the Jaqua Academic Center for Student Athletes, a massive glass square with an inifinity pool surrounding it. Beautiful but somewhat out of place.

The remainder of the campus had a serene shady feel to it, with newer glass and brick and older stone buildings surrounding large swaths of open grassy areas. Can just guess how gorgeous it must be when the trees change color in the fall.

Back to the room just after 5pm, cleaned up a bit and headed to Garden Plaza outside the second floor of the Inn. There was a woman singing and a male guitarist doing cool jazz, lots of songs from Willie Nelson's Stardust album. Nice and relaxing, perfect weather. Her voice was husky and they had nice Norah-Jones-ish arrangements. We had a pinot each and then wandered the attached but mostly closed 5th St Market. Back to the room, we stumbled on a show called "Drunk History" on the Comedy Channel. Pretty funny, and could have sworn it was Sarah Silverman but apparently it was Sarah Burns.

Stewart's alarm went off at 5:15 (he swears he doesn't know why), but since that was 7:15 Dallas time, we had a hard time getting back to sleep. It was tough finding coffee that early in a college town, so at 6:30 we opted for Starbucks but found Full City Coffee Roasters before we got there. Stewart grabbed a double espresso and Anne a small "Extract" (cold steeped French coffee). We grabbed a table outside while we started this log and enjoyed a nice cool morning. We even wore layers since it was 55 degrees when we left the Inn.

But Full City didn't have good breakfast options, so we went from there to another one of Tom's recommendations... Morning Glory, an awesome cafe with outside seating near some of the coolest bike related artwork ever. A giant metal wheel flanked our table, with the Shraeder valve in reach. Outside the railing was a bike rack and several stylized blue signposts, showing the direction and distance to various locations with times "by bicycle." At the corner was a traffic circle with a tall obelisk and kitty-corner was the Eugene Train Depot, so we watched people arrive by Prius taxi to take the Amtrak to their destination.

From there we walked to another of Tom's recommendations: the Center for Appropriate Transport. It wasn't opened yet but had some amazing artwork and mottos to transport by.

Impressions of the city: cool, not crowded, bicycles and coffee shops everywhere, clean, smells good (pine mulch and lilacs), homeless casually distributed, multiple electric car sightings per minute, college town housing (craftsman wrap around porches with grungy couches), and trees, trees and more trees (firs, pines, a two story mimosa and redwoods?). Every bicycle was different: decked out fenders, PVC framed racks, cargo storage, minimalist with no bar tape, gears and at most one brake. Our favorite cargo logo: "Voodoo Doughnuts: Good things come in pink boxes."

Being Saturday in Eugene, we could not miss the Saturday Morning Market, four blocks chock full of fresh produce (mushrooms, local honey, steroidal blackberries), artists (wood carvers, jewelry artists, potters, and makers of bamboo kaleidoscopes, bean earrings, paper machete shaker frogs... more on that later), musicians (violinist, recorder, accordionist and one middle school sax player practicing at the food court for money) and two contortionists balancing each other..

Ok, so the frog was going to Trese for her birthday so we headed back to the Inn to get them to mail it for us as they had offered. But when they started hunting for a box, we got directions to the Kinko's to do it ourselves. Anne was concerned about losing the sparkling crushed stone glued to the sides of the two faced frog. We hiked another few miles and found it, got it enthusiastically packed by a woman who explained why Stewart couldn't get a picture of her packing it due to Kinko publicity rules and elaborating on all the stuff Kinko's has shipped that could get them into trouble (drugs, snakes, two different kinds of spiders ... one of them poisonous). Hilarious! Good thing we weren't narcs.

From there, we walked a block, turned a corner and found ourselves at Vero's Espresso Bar, sat on the wrap around porch and and Anne enjoyed a wonderful half ham panini, fresh fruit and salad along with a "Shot in the Dark" (espresso in coffee) while Stewart's opted for just a banana and second doppio of the day.

We took the long way around on the way back, enjoying the wood framed Craftsman homes, with great porches, gables, eyebrow windows and Frank Lloyd Wright style stained glass windows. Modern square box housing was interspersed, but we got to watch one such monstrosity being demolished, and old red brick apartment building with the jaws of a huge machine chomping bites out of the building while a fire hose sprayed away any chance of sparks on the gaping hole it created. The stuff you see when you're not in a car!

Back at the Inn, we decided to take inventory of the stuff we packed for our trip and Anne was sorry she hadn't brought something lighter weight between her big honkin' hiking boots and her small exposed toe sandals. There's a small hike at Crater Lake and these boots are too big to drag on a bike, while the sandals would chew up her feet. Luckily, we had stumbled upon an REI while walking yesterday so we took another walk to check it out and she returned with a great pair of hard-toed Keen sandals.

Back to the Inn where we walked the 5th Street Market, around and around, from the first floor to the third, snagging brews in the food court and heading up to sit in the shade on the upper deck.

We had dinner at Pure, a Japanese Sushi restaurant on the balcony of the 2nd Floor in the 5th Street Market. Each got udon soup, with some very hot bready fishy things. Tasty but Anne burned the roof of her mouth. A glass of wine to take back to our room from La Bar soothed the problem. We packed before laying back for a final chillax before the cycling begins.

Breakfast was at Marche, granola and oat meal, with a second cup of coffee out on the patio listening to the fountain and smelling the lavender. Then on to meet the Trek Travel guests in the lobby before the vans pulled up. We had met Jackie in the elevator the evening before, then met Stephan and Michael in the lobby. Others joined as the guides, Kyle and Elizabeth, introduced themselves and handed out backpacky bags with Trek Travel logo on them. We'd later use these bags to load our lunches for the days trek.

They had two vans, with three guides, Kyle, Elizabeth, and Zach. We loaded into the van that Kyle was driving, along with a family, Shaun, Gigi, Mills, and Will. Everyone else loaded into the other van that was dragging the trailer. A two hour drive through the scenic Oregon countryside dropped us at Diamond Lake. We had a great lunch there under a covered pavillion among the trees. Then Kyle gave an introduction to the bikes. We rode Trek Domane road bicycles with Di2 electronic shifting. They seem to be moving away from triple chain-rings, these had the compact double chain-rings, which, frankly, do not have the range of the triple. Said another way, we sure missed our triples on those long, steep climbs. Still, the electronic shifting was very nice and always shifted quiet and sure.

We had brought our own pedals, trip computers, and front packs, so we spent a little time getting fitted to our bikes and getting our gear put on. Anne got a very pretty gold and white Womans Specific Design bike, while Stewart's was a dark gray on black, which happens to be his favorite colors.

Domane 5.9 Women's Specific Design
Domane 5.9

It was a bit chaotic for about 30 minutes as everyone milled around, getting fitted to the bikes, and trying out the Di2 gears. Slowly everyone got on the road heading up to Crater Lake. It was probably 1:30pm when we got going. As usual we were the last to leave the lunch spot, taking it easy, stopping when we wanted to take photos.

Here's a quote from the book Bicycling America's National Parks, Oregon and Washington", by David Story

"In some way or another, the national parks of the Pacific Northwest all lend themselves admirably toward bicycle exploration. But Crater Lake may be the best suited of them all. That's because the main activity of park visitors - namely, to circumnavigate Crater Lake at a relaxed pace in order to check out its beauty from a myriad of viewpoints - is best accomplished via bicycle. The route around the lake is a perfect length - neither dismissable for advanced cyclists nor unbearable for intermediates. The rolling terrain offers lots of challenging ascents which are reciprocated by fun, swooping downhills. And, needless to say, the scenery is world-class. ... Of course, as with any park, there are concerns regarding bicycling. Most notably, riders should be prepared for high elevation. The lake surface is 6.176 feet above sea level, and a lot of the riding described below takes place at least a thousand feet higher than that."

The first 15 miles of the ride were a steady climb, quite difficult for us since we don't really train for mountains or altitude. Given that we are pretty fit I'd say the altitude was the hardest on us. By the time we got to Watchman's Overlook and Trail we had climbed to 8071 feet, as shown on my Garmin, a 2600 foot climb from Diamond Lake. Watchman Overlook has a sandy trail that leads upward to the overlook. It is supposed to be specatular, breathtaking, awe-inspiring to look over the edge the first time. We've included above a photo of what it is _supposed_ to look like, and the next photo is what we saw.

The problem was the wildfires burning near Portland. The fires were not contained as of our ride and were generating tremendous smoke into the Crater Lake caldera. The smoke almost completely blocked our view of the crater and made biking even more difficult. We could smell the smoke the entire time biking up the mountain.

From Watchman's Overlook to the Crater Lake Lodge was an exhilerating downhill, a lot of fun, not so steep as be scary. We found the Trek Travel vans parked near the lodge entrance, had ourselves a congratulatory beer, and headed in to have a shower and get settled. Later that evening our guides hosted a Happy Hour on the porch out back of the lodge overlooking the caldera (which was again mostly covered in smoke).

On Monday, the fourth day of our bike vacation, Anne fell while descending Mount Mazama, the mountain that initally formed Crater Lake in Oregon. A pothole was hidden by the shadows of the fir trees on the side of the road. She hit it going about 25 mph. Our Trek Travel guide, Kyle, raced back to help while Stewart turned around.

Trek Travel had a plan for us to ride to the boat access point about 11 miles from the Crater Lake Lodge where we were staying. From there, we were to hike down about a mile to the lake, then boat out on Crater Lake. Stewart and I opted to bike to the trail head despite the intensity of the 20 mile mountain climb on Day 1 and being aware of the extreme profile of the Day 2 route. Some wisely took the van.

It was grueling, a continuous 6-8% grade, sometimes more. We took our Camelbaks, still acclimating to the 6000+ foot altitude, and stopped at every overlook available. Kyle, one of the guides, rode back and forth among those of us who took bikes rather than the van, and provided his unique hipster-style encouragement. I had switched to my smaller sunglasses since the big Gyro's we got free on our last Backroads trip wouldn't hold a rear-view mirror.

Finally about 8 miles in, we crested the highest point and started the downhill. I saw in my mirror as Kyle slid up next to me and I asked him whether the brake hoods were safe or should I use the brakes in the drops. He recommended the drops as being safer and I took that advice, carefully squeezing both brakes simultaneously off and on as we picked up speed on the downhill. Stewart was soon out of sight rounding the bends more bravely and Kyle went up ahead too.

I crashed.

?? I hear my voice but have no control over that noise. ?? Why is my face on the asphalt? What are my teeth rubbing on? Gotta grab something! but I'm spinning, pinwheeling downhill, just enough tiny gravel to continue the slide. No, grabbing street with fingertips is a bad idea! Still yelling?? Finally I'm stopped. Is anyone near? Now I'm yelling on purpose ... and thank god! Kyle is here! So soon. I'm ok, I'm ok, I'm ok. Well, sore. What happened??? I'm on my back, helmet still attached, laying on my Camelbak. Stewart's here now too. Ok, ok, ok, I'm just going to lay here. Wait, helmet is awkward. Please remove it. Shoulder sore, feels better with helmet off. Now head too far from ground. Please remove Camelbak. It's off, my head is stabilized as I'm moved out of the middle of the road and the Camelbak goes under my head and Stewart's is under my knees. Feel ok now. Yikes! Shouldn't have held up my fingertips to see them. Oh well, fingernails and fingertips grow back. Now park ranger is here, now EMS arrives, asking what day it is, what's my date of birth. I answer all questions correctly, looking around with both eyes but Stewart is holding my head tight. I start shivering. Park ranger has astronaut blanket and finds out how hard they are to open up but I'm wrapped and feel better. Elizabeth arrives and wraps my top with her fleece jacket. Much better. My new jersey is getting cut off. Oh well. People walking all around, can't see what traffic is doing. Yes, Obama is president, I'm at Crater Lake, it's Monday I think the 5th since we were in Eugene Friday the 2nd and Sat, and yesterday (Sunday the 4th) was the 1st day of our cycling vacation. What hurts? Fingers, shoulder, a spot where my shoulder connects to my neck. The EMT checks my legs, my arms, keeps looking concerned at my face, pushes on my hip bones and ribcage, runs his fingers down the back of my neck. I get transferred to flat board gurney and he checks my back while i'm turned on my side. I'm not hearing any "uh oh" so I think I'm ok. Then they tell me I'm going to Bend. They have a Level II Trauma Center so it's a better bet than Klamath Falls but will take a helicopter. Oh, ok... Don't worry, we're in a National Park so it's free. I ask if I'm still in the United States and they all get a laugh.

In the ambulance now, 35 minutes to the helicopter. I hear concern about timing from the EMT. I'm shivering again. We're flying. The EMT asks the driver to slow down enough to get the IV in. The woman standing over me gets me covered and warm again. The EMTs mention it's boiling in there but she won't let them turn up the AC. The IV is in. I'm asked what's the pain level from 1 to 10. I say 3-4. They want zero. Something goes in the IV. Time passes. I'm asked again. I say zero except there is a LOT of pressure on my forehead. I ask if they are holding my left eye shut. No, I'm told I'm doing that myself.

Here's the helicopter. I hear we made it in 20 minutes. Again some transfers and back checks. We take off. This is smooth! No idea how long and getting too tired to ask questions now. Answer all questions asked. Still zero pain but lots of pressure. We land without even a bump. Transferred and into the ER. On the table, the doctor asks my age, date of birth, what happened. I'm still answering ok. He orders a cat scan, some XRays. Asks if I have contacts in. Oh dang! Yes, hard lenses in both eyes. Ok, he and the assistant (PA? Nurse?) use gauze to dry my eyes and their fingers real good, pry my eyes open and squirt some yellow stuff in there. Then a few more pries and they are able to suction the contacts out, even from the eye that is totally swollen shut. Thank God!

Dr. Sampson tells me we're at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend. He checks my pelvis and ribcage again, verifies my arms and legs are ok, stares at my face a lot. I hear hematoma.

The orderly takes me to get images done and they do my head, my shoulder, my neck. Then it's back to the room and the nurse takes over cleaning my face and poor split fingertips. She says the Cascades Race was there last week so they handle a lot of bike crashes. No biggy. She thinks I've gotten very lucky here but we'll know more when the results come back from the imaging.

She asks for Stewart's phone number which I actually remember and she's off to let him know how I'm doing.

Dr. Sampson returns and sits down next to me. Turns out I have a fracture in my cheekbone, but one radiologist believes it's in place and other says it's minimally displaced. No need for treatment in either case. Cosmetically I could get it looked at in 6 weeks if I care. I also have a broken nose, again in place, again no treatment needed. FInally, I have a crack in my C5 spinous process, a protuding bone from my neck. But, miraculously, that bone is not associated with nerves and again in itself needs no treatment. These things will heal in a month or so on their own. Only one caveat: there is some separation near the C5 fracture and he wants to be sure there it does not cause any further issue so I'm to see a neurosurgeon the next day.

Fractures aside, he says my face should still be numb so he vigorously scrubs a tear on the crack of my lip and goes ahead and puts in four stitches. The nurse notes that since it's in line with my mouth, the scar likely won't even be visible.

Am I incredibly lucky or what??

At this point, Stewart and Zach arrive. We get caught up, and Stewart asks Dr. Sampson if I need to stay. He says no, I should be able to check out soon. What??? I don't think it's even lunch time yet. Amazing! Stewart and Zach go off to get a hotel and rental car and I lay back in my stiff neck brace to wait for checkout. I think they gave me Percocet and I'm very relaxed but can't sleep. Stewart returns, we get checked out and I even walk myself to the car (no wheel chairs here!).

Stewart tells me I hit a pothole in the shadows of the massive pine trees while descending the mountain. He felt the van hit it when they took me away in the ambulance and they picked him up to go retrieve our day bags at the boat ramp. Not sure how I could have avoided it but I'm thinking I'll stay much further away from the dark road edges in the future. That's right, I'm already planning my next bike ride. I get a little weepy in the car and chalk it up to the Percocet too so I switch to Advil (600 mg every 6-8 hours) and I'm feeling fine.

Then I look in the mirror! Horror show face! Buy a big floppy hat the next day at Great Outdoors in Bend and we take a mile walk along the river, trying my best not to scare small children. Seriously, I feel fine. Again, amazing!

We see the neurosurgeon on Tuesday and he checks my movement and sees no reason I should keep the neck brace. If I'm worried about turbulance on the flight home, I could get a soft collar. I actually slept fine in the hard one so I decide to take it on the plane so I can sleep sitting up and get special treatment. Didn't end up putting it on though, but did wear the floppy hat in lines. TSA didn't care. Somehow they decided my driver's license was the same as the face under that hat.

Treatment has been ice packs several times a day for the first few days, advil as mentioned, and soap/water to clean the abrasions followed by Neosporin all over. Still haven't gotten brave enough to put my contacts back in but the glasses work fine.

Five days in, I'm on the spin bike at home, have half my face back and my fingertips are starting to get feeling back. Guess my future as a safe cracker is in jeopardy. The bruises are sinking down my neck and torso but yellowing so they'll be gone soon. Got the lip stitches out yesterday at Dr. Lensing's office by Kristen, the PA. She warns to head to the ER immediately if I get a headache or become confused since brain bleeds can take up to 6 weeks to show up. I have a dental appt Monday morning and an eye appt Tuesday, presumably my first day back at work. I may have to work from home until people quit screaming when they see me, but that may be by Tuesday, one week and one day from the incident.

It has never felt that bad but it looks like hell since I chose the wrong body part to sacrifice to the gods of asphalt... my face. Got released from the ER in a few hours, no casts or surgery, just a few stitches, couldn't have asked for a better outcome really since I figure I was doing 25 mph or so when I landed. Stewart's Garmin shows 30 and he was beating me by a lot.

The final tally:

Stay positive!

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Stewart's Tale:

I was bicycling ahead of Anne on that descent (gravity rules!) doing about 30 mph. I was trying real hard to keep it under 30 and not get too much faster since I didn't know the roads at all. (Even 30 seemed a bit fast, it was pretty steep). Kyle was in front of me at the bottom where there was a turnout. Kyle turned around and started back up the mountain to check on all the bikers. I had just started turning around to re-join Anne when I looked back and saw Anne go down. She fell head first onto the road, pinwheeled, and skidded to a stop. I was not very close so I didn't see any real details but it looked bad. She was yelling and yelling. I was totally freaked and raced back up the mountain. Kyle was quite a ways ahead of me, got there first and started helping out.

Anne was awake, aware, and able to move all her limbs okay, but her face was cut up and oozing, her fingertips were torn up, and she had scrapes on her legs. Kyle used his water bottle to clean everything a bit. A passing motorist stopped with some clean cloths and ice which we used. A park ranger showed up very fast, got on his 2-way and radioed for an EMS unit. On the radio the EMS person told us to emobilize her head until they arrived so I sat down over her head and held it between my hands very tightly to prevent her from moving it at all.

Several more park rangers showed up to help before the EMS showed up. The EMS checked her out and were worried about head and neck trauma, so they carefully strapped her on one of those stretchers and called for a helipcopter to pick her up and take her to the Bend, Oregon medical center.

The EMS drove off and the park rangers cleaned up a bit and drove off. Elizabeth and I picked up the bikes and Anne's gear, threw them into the van, and headed back to the lodge. I packed up all our luggage so we could check out of the lodge and head to the hospital in Bend. I made a special bag for Anne to use while in the hospital and to wear when she was discharged. One of the other guides, Zach, grabbed one of the vans, loaded our stuff in, and drove me to the hospital in Bend, about a 2 hour drive.

Zach and I went to see Anne first. She was in the Emergency Room. The Dr.s and nurses had seen her and were assessing her condition. She was awake and aware and in little pain. The ER dr. came in and told us the results and said Anne would be able to leave in about an hour!

In the meantime Zach drove me over to the Phoenix Hotel where I checked in and dropped off our luggage, then he drove me to Enterprise to rent a car. While I was inside Zach checked back with the Oxford Hotel. We had reservations for the next two days at the Oxford as part of the bike trip, but they originally did not have a room for this night, so the Phoenix was a substitute. The Oxford had a cancellation so Zach went over and got my luggage from the Phoenix and moved it all to the Oxford while I drove back to the hospital. It was a bit complicated but worked out good for us. We didn't have to check out of the Phoenix at noon, but not check into the Oxford until 3pm on Tuesday.

I drove back over to the hospital to be with Anne, see how she was doing, and find out if she would need to stay multiple days. The Dr. and nurse were preparing the paperwork for Anne to checkout! In about an hour we were done and Anne was able to walk out of the ER and across the parking lot and get in the rental car. As we drove up to the Oxford the valet ran out to greet us. He clearly had been briefed about Anne's crash and wanted to know everything. It seems that everyone at the Oxford were briefed and did everything possible to make our stay easy and enjoyable. They were amazing. And our room was fantastic, as you can see in the photos above. We had a sitting area. a bed area, a large bathroom, all tile and chrome, and a french press for coffee. That evening we ordered in-room service from the hotel restaurant "10below" and fell asleep early watching TV.

2013/08/22 - UPDATE !!

Anne has been in email contact with the Park Rangers at Crater Lake. Due to a fortunate coincidence Anne's sister Kathy, in St. Louis, knows one of the Park Rangers and forwarded this log to him. He then forwarded it around so all the Rangers and EMS people could see that Anne was healing up just fine with no lasting effects. They apparently do not normally get reports on the people they help, so this was a happy event for them.

Ranger Mike took these last two photos (see above). Anne has been loaded into the ambulance while Elizabeth, Stewart, and Ranger Paul are cleaning up and preparing to leave.

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8/6/2013 - Tuesday - Day 5
Recovering in Bend, Oregon

Anne felt pretty good this morning but felt uncomfortable going out in public because of the all the bruising and the black eyes. She didn't want to scare any kids! We went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast where our waitress gave us the scoop on various places to hike, and places where she might get a wide-brimmed hat. Stewart plugged them into iPhone maps and everything was about 6 minutes away! We headed over to Great Outdoors where anne found the hat she is wearing in the picture above. After breakfast we drove over to Miller's Landing Park near the Deschutes River and walked the south bank and north bank trails. Anne wanted to check out all her equipment and make sure there were no other hidden injuries. She was fine!

Stewart called Trek Travel today to arrange an early return to Texas. Jana, our travel agent, checked flights and found two that would get us out Wednesday or Thursday. We changed to First Class on a 6:20am flight leaving from Redmond airport on Wednesday. Tonight we again had a wonderful in-room meal, haibut and scallops with beets. We only wanted one of the meals to split between us, and the kitchen split the meal into two (see the photo). After dinner Anne wanted another glass of wine so Stewart headed down to the bar to pick it up. The other Trek Travel guests were supposed to be at dinner at Zydeco, the restaurant we ate at for lunch today. Zydeco is down the street and around the corner. We really didn't want to meet them since Anne's face was so torn up. It might scare them into not bicycling and that would be a shame. Stewart took the elevator down to LL where the hotel restaurant 10below was. When the elevator doors opened there were all the other guests and the guides standing there looking at him, waiting for the elevator, so they could head over to Zydeco! They were running very late. They all cheered and clapped Stewart on the back and asked about Anne, talking all at once, very upbeat and encouraging. We packed most everything up this evening since we would have to leave so early tomorrow to get to the airport.

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8/7/2013 - Wednesday - Day 6
Back Home

We got up bright and early at 4am to drive to the airport. Redmond airport is about 20 minutes north of Bend, so we wouldn't have to drive back to Eugene. We dropped off the rental car and headed in, checked our bags (turns out First Class gets 3 "free" bags each person!), and loaded onto the flight. That First Class is _very_nice_. We sat in Row 2 on the flight to Salt Lake, then in Row 1 for the flight to Dallas. Wow! Leg room, food, drinks. Anne could really get used to this!

Tootzak and Seebie, our cats, were very glad to see us and "helped us" unpack. It was in the 50s when we left Redmond, and 104 degrees when we got home.

Welcome Home French Family, Welcome Home!

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