It’s official. I am officially one year behind on my blog. That means you guys get to read what we were doing one year ago, not a few weeks or days ago. My sister-in-law has talked me into using Instagram to stay more current with our travels because it if much quicker and easier. So, I am going to do that once we are on the road again. Right now, it is project time, so we are at my in-laws house again until after the holidays. We have several projects to get done, as we always do. It seems nothing is as constant as projects when you live in an RV and particularly a 22 year old RV.
Being with family reminds me of what is most important in life–our relationships. Our relationship with God, our family, our friends and anyone we come in contact with. It also reminds me of something we saw over and over again on our travels this summer (2022) in Banff and Jasper National Parks in Canada. We went on these wonderful hikes to epic waterfalls, like Athabasca Falls and Sunwapta Falls. Near the falls, there were some nice benches for people to sit and rest for a bit and take in the view. These benches were most often at a nice viewing point for the waterfall. We were happy to take advantage of the bench. Sitting on them we noticed something, they all had a dedicatory plaque on them. All of them were dedicated to a person, all of whom were young men in their 20s, and all of whom lost their lives at the waterfall–likely doing something stupid to get a better selfie or picture.
That made Mike and I start to think about that. Here they were, on a trip, very much like we were doing that day. I’m sure they were probably enjoying the day and perhaps the people they were with. The scenery was amazing. My guess is that in pursuit of that epic photo, they disregarded safety notices of slippery rocks and the like and maybe even hopped over the safety barriers. They inched closer and closer to the edge for that epic shot and then suddenly they are gone. I can imagine if they had been traveling with someone, how shocked they would be. It would be surreal to lose someone like that. In talking to Mike about it, I was commenting on how sad and stupid–why would anyone be that stupid.
Then I had an experience of my own that changed my perspective. Just a few weeks ago, the week of my birthday, Mike and I went to one of our favorite places in the world, Quileute Oceanside Resort. It is in La Push, Washington, right on the coast. We had camped there in our fifth wheel several years ago on a Washington/Oregon Coast trip. We loved it!! So we came back. Our camp spot for the RV was right on First Beach. We could look out our front window and watch the waves rolling in, see the humpback whales in the bay and watch the sunset over the ocean. It is a beautiful and relaxing place to be.
We went for walks up and down the beach. We arrived two days before, my birthday, and were staying for a week. On my birthday, we went to Second Beach and hiked down to it and walked all around. It is cold weather here and the water is cold, so these are not play in the water type beaches, but more view the beauty and enjoy watching the waves and in some cases the surfers, type beaches. We had a beautiful day, including my favorite birthday cake, homemade, gluten-free carrot cake.
The next day, was a working day, but part way through the day I suggested that we go for a walk on the beach before my next conference call. So we walked down to the end of the beach. Along this beach are gigantic, old growth trees that have washed up on shore over many years. At the end of the beach is a particularly large one. The tide was coming in, so I had the thought to walk down one of these gigantic trees and sit on it to watch the waves come in. The tree was huge so it wasn’t like walking on a balance beam or anything. There was plenty of surface area on both sides of me. I walked all the way down it to the root ball. Mike came part way down it and took a picture of me, then he turned around and started to walk back down the tree. Then as I stepped to walk back down the tree, the tree was apparently more slippery than I had noticed and with sand on my shoes, my first step went sideways. I slipped and was suddenly falling to the ground.
You know how when something like this happens, time slows down. Well, it did and several things went through my head. I could not see where I was falling because I was basically sliding down and around the tree trunk so my head was back. I knew I was pretty high up. I did not know if I had sand or rocks below me. I also knew I had a knee replacement and bad back and needed to protect myself as much as possible as I fell. So I knew I needed to land with bent knees and then to roll. Well, I am not a young, agile gymnast anymore, so this 51 year old woman did her best to absorb the impact and roll to the side. My right foot and hand took most of the impact. I heard a “pop” and I thought, “oh no, what have I done”. As I laid there, trying to assess the damage, which is difficult because of the adrenaline, I thought about how stupid I had just been. Why did I do that? Why did I think it was a good idea? Have I broken something? Will this end our time here and potentially force us to go back to Utah to get medical treatment?
Mike was still walking back down the tree but he heard me fall as I apparently made a little bit of a “AAAAHHHHH” sound as I fell. He turned and out of the corner of his eye saw me falling. He got back on solid ground and raced over to see how I was. I was definitely injured. Luckily, no broken bones. He helped me hobble back to the RV all the way at the other end of the beach and I got there just in time for my conference call. We put some cold packs on it while I did my call.
I fell about eight feet or so, but luckily I landed mostly on the sand and missed the big rocks you see in the picture above. My hand hit the small rock you see behind the big ones, I believe. The next day, I had bruising all along the palm padding part of my right thumb, front and back side. I had some bruising of my big toe under the toe nail (my foot got rammed into the front of my shoe and so my toe nail jammed into my toe) and a little on my foot and ankle, but not much. My ankle was very swollen and my heel and two places on my ankle were really sore. I was barely able to hobble around with a walking stick. So, I took it easy that day and kept my foot up and iced on and off. We decided to see how it went for a few days before making a decision about what to do.
It got a little bit better each day, by Saturday, I was getting around pretty good but still in a fair amount of pain. We decided to go for a little walk down one of the trails that was a beautiful rain forest. I was able to make it a little ways and back, but not far. But one thing I noticed on this hike, that I hadn’t noticed on the hike the day before my accident, was the safety notices on the great big bulletin board at the trail head which warned us not to climb on the driftwood trees because they are slippery. I felt really dumb and I suddenly understood how someone could be so stupid in pursuit of the view for a photo or to watch the waves. I understood how those young men had met their end. I was lucky because my injury was not severe and certainly not life-threatening, but I had been stupid. One never knows in the moment when they are being stupid. It doesn’t feel dangerous or you don’t necessarily recognize the danger in the moment. In future days, I hope to be smarter because of this experience and think before I go in pursuit of a view or anything else. I thank Heavenly Father, that it wasn’t a lot worse. I only had to deal with the pain and injury for several weeks following (I’m still feeling the effects of it), rather than Mike dealing with the pain and sadness of my death. I have a small amount of empathy for what these young men were thinking and what their families may have experienced.
I married a very wise man and I have learned a lot from him over the 30+ years I have known him. One night shortly after we had seen the benches dedicated to those young men, we were sitting in bed preparing to go to sleep, Mike said something very profound and very true:
Very few of us wake up knowing that today is the last day we will be alive on the earth. For those that do, most will welcome the end of the pain. For the rest of us, because we don’t know when we will be leaving this earth life, we need to live life to the fullest, love those around us, and listen to that inner voice in our heart that tells of our true self.
~Mike
I think that says it all.