Pre-Birthday Surprise

It was my birthday on Sunday. 26 years old. I totally remember when my big brother turned 26 and I hassled him so much because he was officially closer to 30 than he was to 20. Now I'm there, but I'm determined to age gracefully. So yes. I'm 26 but I'm proud of it. I've got a handsome husband and a wonderful son to show for it. 

The day before my birthday Ray wanted to ride his bike down Pikes Peak here in Colorado Springs. For my fellow Canadian and non-Coloradans(???) Pikes Peak is a 14000 ft high mountain that has a road and a railway built up to the top of it.

We started our venture up this windy road and it was BEAUTIFUL!!! I felt like we were at eye level with the clouds in the distance. Side note... The clouds in Colorado are incredible. I've never seen anything like them and I love it.

Once we reached around 11000 ft, we hit the tree line and the landscape totally changed. It looked like we were on the moon! Then... I kinda went picture crazy...

At the top of Pikes Peak there's a monument built. Apparently the woman who wrote "America the Beautiful" was so inspired by the view up there that she wrote the song on the spot. I told Ray to pose in front of the monument. I guess this is his version of posing. haha! It's kind of awesome.

Then it was my turn. This is me trying to be Patriotic... ???

Have I mentioned how beautiful the clouds are???

On our way back down, I wanted to make my mark on the mountain. So I wrote 143 in the 14000 ft high snow.

Little did I know that this was the only the BEGINNING of the fun...

Before cleaning up

Remember how the whole point of this adventure was so that Ray could ride a mountain bike all the way down Pikes Peak??? Well. Obviously that didn't turn out so well.

Ray borrowed a friend's super high end mountain bike. It had shocks in places I didn't know you COULD put shocks! Well I dropped him off at the bike trail as we headed back down the mountain and we parted ways. It took a good 45 minutes for me to drive back down, and another 15 minutes before I had cell phone reception. Right at that point, my phone buzzed and there was a voicemail... from Ray...... *insert dread here*. I listened to it but it was super choppy and all I could get out of it was "come pick me up". *insert panic here* I turned around ASAP and made my was back up the scary, windy road... The whole hour long ride back I was driving more agressive than I thought I was capable of and I was thinking awful thoughts of what situation I would find him in or even IF I would find him. Thank goodness Warren was asleep. My head was exploding with panic already...

I FINALLY got to where I dropped him off and a car coming towards me stopped and Ray stepped out of it. He was covered in dirt and his face looked swollen. I'm not sure if I felt more relief that he wasn't stranded on the side of the mountain or if I felt more dread because he looked so awful.

Then he pulled the bike out of the back of this car... in two pieces... I was so confused. And by this time Warren had woken up and he was hungry! The explanation had to wait.

So after what seemed like hours, Ray finally told me what happened.

Turns out this super high end bike fell apart. Literally fell apart. Ray was about 10 minutes down the trail and was preparing to go over a tiny little jump and the next thing he knew he was face down on the ground, spitting out dirt. He said once he realized where he was, the first thing he did was try to call me, and miraculously he had reception and could get a call through to me. He sat there for a while to try to gather himself and eventually got around to figuring out what happened. The shock on the front wheel came apart completely. So I guess when he went over that tiny bump, the front tire came off the bike with half of the shock still attached and he landed on the fork that was supposed to have the wheel attached to it. (Make sense?? We were both in too much of a daze to think of taking a picture of it.) He was thrown face first into the ground. He ended up carrying the two pieces of the bike back up to where he started and a couple people gave him water while he rested and then another couple offered to drive him back down to the bottom. That's when I met up with him. It was just 30 seconds after he got in the car with those nice people who were gonna drive him down the mountain. Here I was thinking that he'd be waiting and waiting and waiting, but things actually ended up working out perfectly. The picture below is of where the bike landed.

He was pretty shook up and not in good shape at all so I took him to the ER where we spent 5 hours since we were trumped by the helicopter trauma that arrived when we were there. He got a CT scan and was cleared. Just a minor concussion. His helmet pretty much saved him, which has enforced (yes ENFORCED, not REinforced) the importance of helmets to him (WOOT!!!).

Despite how much this whole thing sucked, the blessings COMPLETELY outweigh how bad this was.

A) RAY COULD HAVE DIED!!!!! It's a 2-3 hour bike ride and had he not gone over that TINY jump 10 minutes into the ride, it would have happened at some point further down that trail and that would have been bad bad BAD news.

B) Against my better judgement, he went alone. I justified it because he's really smart and even though he does risky things, he's not stupid. Lesson learned for both of us! DO NOT GO ALONE ON BIG BIG RIDES!!!!

C) Ray was given a Priesthood blessing after all the excitement of the day which said that if he had prayed before he started, Heavenly Father would have let him know not to go and Ray would have listened. Nothing like a good ol scolding from God to put you in your place...

D) It's been less than a week and Ray's face is pretty much all healed up. I think that was an abnormally quick recovery.

But the part that I should be most surprised about but I'm not at all surprised about is...

                      Ray still wants to ride down the trail.

I guess it didn't phase him. Boys will be boys. And I like my boys ALIVE.

After the clean up

The healing process