A Happy Anniversary?
First, if you haven't already, check out the last post from when Steph and I visited my parents for the weekend. Some pretty cool stuff there.
Alright! So Tuesday the 5th was Steph and I's second anniversary. We went to Big Bear and spent the night at a bed and breakfast called Knickerbockers. For those who may not be too familiar with Big Bear, it is a lake high up in the mountains that's fairly famous for its skiing but is a fun place any time of the year with plenty of hiking, biking, wildlife and water sports. Below is a picture of Big Bear.
The next picture is a picture of the Knickerbocker mansion. This was a rustic cabin built in the 20's by one of the first people to live in Big Bear. He maintained the dam that supplied the orange groves in Redlands with water.
After Steph and I arrived and settled into our room, the first adventure we undertook was a mountain biking excursion. The Knickerbocker boarders a national forest, and there were a bunch of dirt roads that you could ride on that were great for Steph's skill level. It was a pretty hard climb at the very beginning, probably a good mile or two of just up, but after that it was quite a bit of fun. Now, at this point I'm sure you're wondering why there is a question mark in the title of this post, unless you just assumed that it was a typo (which it is not). Well, that business enters into this part of the narration. Steph and I were planning on making a nice little loop, taking a singletrack (path) back down the mountain, meeting up with the road, and then riding back to the Knickerbocker. Well, since the singletrack path wasn't marked, we missed it. No big deal as, again, there are plenty of forest roads to get back on. So we take one of these forest roads back down, and its a great stretch of downhill. Steph, being more timid than I, quickly falls behind. Soon it turns from a dirt road to a one lane paved road, and I let loose. I start cruising at what I estimate to be about 35-40 mph (no, I'm not exaggerating). Then the next bit occurs over the course of maybe 3 or 4 seconds. At exactly the wrong time, a truck comes around a blind corner (one that I could not see around). I slam on the breaks and veer to the right of the truck, missing it with only a little bit of difficulty. The problem is that the truck is not traveling alone, after I took these evasive maneuvers and set a new course, another truck appears directly in the path of my new course. The way I'm traveling, I'm going to plow straight into the drivers side front fender, so I continue to slam on the breaks and aim left of the truck. My back tire starts to slide out, coming up on my right hand side. But it is too late. Collision is unavoidable, and so while still traveling about 20 miles an hour, I collide with the truck (I think it was a Chevy Silverado). The force of the collision throws me up onto the hood and I slide across the hood from the center of the truck to the passenger side corner and then fly a good 6 or 7 feet past the truck until I land on my right arm/shoulder/back on the rocky shoulder of the road. I get up immediately and begin apologizing profusely to the driver who kept asking if I was OK. I hurt in several places, but nothing seems serious, so I keep apologizing. They (them and the truck in front of them) were heading up the road to do some mountain biking, which I think helped them not be too pissed at me (the lady said she understood as they do the same thing). They then complimented my bike, which is standing upright in front of the truck because my pedal went through the front right above the bumper. Ironically, whereas the truck has a dented bumper, a broken off plastic piece from where my pedal went through, some of my bike's paint on the hood, and a long scratch along the hood where i think the zipper on my short's leg pocket dragged across it, my bike has absolutely no damage besides some scuffed paint (and people laughed at me when I spent thousands on my bike! Well it beat up a truck! Ha!). So we exchange phone numbers, and Steph and I continue on our ride. But I quickly begin to notice that using my right arm causes rather intense pain, and by the time we get back to the Knickerbocker, I decide that I need to go to the ER. They take x-rays, and inform me that I have a fractured elbow. Below is a picture of me holding up my x-ray, and the next is a picture of the road rash I got on my hip (my leg also got scratched up, but nothing worth taking a picture over).
So that kinda put a damper on the rest of the trip, but it was still fun overall. Once we got back from the ER, we went out to dinner at a very tasty place, and then went back to our room and watched "I *heart* Huckabees" which has to be one of the worst movies ever made...seriously, avoid it.
After a night of not so great sleep we had a delicious gourmet breakfast at the inn, then sat on the porch reading and watching these woodpeckers attack a dead tree.
After checking out, we went to the other side of the lake and did some hiking. We saw this amazing Thunderbird in the parking lot of the National Forest Visitor's Center.
And this is a picture from the hike.
Anyway, enough for now!
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