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Old 10-22-2016, 02:23 PM   #1
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A Vacation Within A Vacation.....and a rescue of sorts

Tina and I are now in Arizona, staying at our condo in the NW corner of the Phoenix area. The weather has been great with temps in the 90’s, zero clouds, light winds. Just darn near perfect.

We saw on the news that the aspen leaves in the mountains were changing colors so we decided to take a 3-day, 2-night vacation to Sedona, AZ. For those of you not familiar with Sedona, it’s known for its vortexes and for the red rock mountains in the area. We found a place on AirBNB at a private home, booked it and Tuesday drove the 2 hours up to Sedona.

We’d been there before, 9 years ago on our honeymoon. It was nice to go back, see the same beautiful scenery and take some off road trails to see places we hadn’t before.

The place we stayed was much better than we had expected and the owner of the home was a great source of information about things to see and places to go. The view out the windows was great…


As we drove around this is what we saw. These pictures don't do the beauty of the red rock formations justice. It's just hard to capture how magnificent they are....




[img]
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...psi5agfpox.jpg[/img]







We took what turned out to be a rough road to go see an old Indian ruins. The road wasn’t horrible, but it definitely was a road for 4x4’s. The ruins were about 11 miles off the highway and it took about 2.5 hours to get there. Here are two shots of the ruins and some hieroglyphics.




While we were getting ready to leave the parking lot three ATV’s pulled in and parked. We left and headed back out the trail. A short time later these three ATV's were right behind me, so I pulled over. They went blasting past and disappeared in a cloud of dust. We continued on but about a mile or so later one of them was running back towards us waving his arms. He told us that one of the ATV’s had flipped and the driver was injured. We pulled up to where it had flipped. I parked and Tina stayed in the truck.


The driver was sitting on the side of the road holding his left arm. The people there seemed to be more interested in getting the ATV back on its wheels than taking care of the driver. I asked him how he was doing and he said “Not good. My arm is broken and I'm bleeding.”

I suggested he and his wife get in our truck and we would take him to the hospital. We had about 8 miles of the rough road to travel before we got to the highway. I figured our truck would be a softer ride and it was air conditioned, something necessary on the 95* day. We took off and VERY slowly drove. Every time we hit a bump he would moan. I was trying to drive a fine line between driving slow to ease his pain and getting him to medical help as soon as possible. After what seemed like hours of driving we finally got to the highway. At that point I took off and drove about 80 mph on the trip to the emergency room. We called ahead and told the ER people what we were bringing to them so they could do any prep work before we got there.

As soon as we pulled up and got into the ER one of the nurses came out and took them both back to the treatment areas.

The guy's wife called us later and told us that the x-rays showed the bone in his lower arm was broken in two places and one piece of bone was sticking out through the skin. They had transported them to a bigger facility that was better suited to treat him. They were going to put in at least two pins in the bone. OUCH!

After we dropped them off at the hospital the first thing we did was find a place to have a cold beer and let the adrenaline go away.

The next morning (our last) we drove to the old mining town of Jerome. It's supposed to be one of the most haunted towns in the country. We didn't see any ghosts, but did see some beautiful scenery and a LOT of old buildings, most of which had been converted into tourist traps selling anything and everything. After a couple hour walking tour of Jerome we headed back home.

All things considered it was a good trip.
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Old 10-23-2016, 08:57 AM   #2
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A most excellent adventure. Good views, good company, and Good Samaritan!

All in a day's retirement!

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Old 10-23-2016, 10:20 AM   #3
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That looks like another planet! (It's been raining/drizzling here for weeks with alpine snow descending into heavily forested mountainsides.)

You'd think one ATV should've taken the injured fellow out and one would stay with the wreck, or did you happen upon the scene right after the accident?
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Old 10-23-2016, 12:02 PM   #4
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Roamer, yup, just another retired guy's adventure. There sure have been a lot of them.




Murray, we got there right after it happened. They had the injured guy sitting on the side of the road, but nobody was paying any attention to him--they were more interested in getting the ATV back on its wheels.


That's why I talked with him to see how he was doing and see if he was in shock. I thought it would be a more comfortable ride in my truck than in an ATV. Plus, the ATVs are limited to roads with 35mph speed limits. I knew the shortest way to the hospital was to get to the highway (about 6-8 miles or so) and then go straight to the emergency room. The ATV's couldn't use the highway so they would have had to take a more circuitous route and that would have taken a lot longer.


I offered the ride, he and his wife gladly accepted. It wasn't a comfortable ride, but at least we were in the air conditioning. On a day that was in the mid-90's that would have been a bear in an ATV.
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Old 10-23-2016, 12:17 PM   #5
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Another chip in your good karma bucket
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Old 10-24-2016, 06:06 PM   #6
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Good show, GFC!

Jerome - the vertical town. Love that place, haven't been there in years.
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Old 10-25-2016, 10:15 PM   #7
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Another chip in your good karma bucket
I'll take all of those I can get to offset some of the awshits I've accumulated over the years!

SBU, it hasn't changed a bit.


I talked today to the guy we brought out. He's doing much better after two surgeries. They were transported from the hospital we took him to in Sedona to a hospital in Flagstaff that was better equipped to handle that type of injury. He said they put in two pins and screwed them in place. He's recovering well and is up and around. They want to meet us for breakfast or lunch some time in the very near future. He told me his wife is his social coordinator (I can FULLY relate to that!) so he's going to have her give us a call.

He and I fully agreed on one thing--God doesn't put us in a place by accident. Tina and I had not planned on taking that road but had some extra time to kill. He and his buddies had not planned on taking that road but wanted to do some more exploring before they took the rented ATV's back. Go figure!
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