Although Emily and I had some fun get togethers with friends this weekend proved to be ultimately very unlucky for me. On Friday night Emily and I met up with friends at Mischa’s for a couple drinks before her Burn & Salvage soccer game. They subsequently destroyed their opponent and we both had a relaxing evening at home.
It felt great to sleep in on Saturday after a long week but with our New Years resolutions we were pumped to get some exercise so we called up Holm to go biking with us in MacDunn. As we left the house I checked we both had rain gear on because the clouds over the surrounding hills looked ominous. Just as I expected it began to pour, and then
hail on us on the road to the Oak Creek trailhead soaking all of us. I remained fairly dry in my gore-tex but Chris in shorts and emily in spandex bottoms got pretty wet. I had been wearing my Smith Factor D-Max sunglasses with the yellow lenses to shield my eyes from the rain and mud kicked up from my tires but while climbing they were starting to fog up so I put an earpiece in my collar to keep them there. We had a wonderful bike ride up the gravel roads to the top of Dimple Hill where I discovered to my horror that my sunglasses were no longer attached to me. I ushered Emily Chris to begin heading down Dan’s trail while I cruised back down the road looking for them. I nearly went all the way down before giving up and heading back up the road getting more tired by the minute. The way down Dan’s trail really sucked as mud was thrown up into my face and into my eyes blinding me on several occasions with gritty pain. When we arrived home after the ride down 29th street I went inside and stoked the fire for Emily’s frozen feet and headed in the truck back to Oak Creek to look for my sunglasses again. By now it was 4:30 and the sun was quickly setting. I was able to bike nearly half way back up Dimple
HIll but did not find them. I did see a spot where it looked like a biker had skidded to a stop and picked up something... probably my sunglasses!
After showering and cleaning up our bikes we headed over to Colin and Amanda’s for board game night and some of his great crab bisque. Scott and Danielle, Kevin & Alexa and Tim showed up while Rob and Isaac showed up later in the evening. We had a great time playing Besserwisser and Hit or Miss with Alexa and Kevin barely beating Emily and I with a tie showdown in Besserwisser. When 11pm came Emily and I excused ourselves to get some sleep before a big day of skiing with Chris early in the morning. The highlight of the night was when Scott leaned the wrong way and broke one of the kitchen chairs... and he’s the skinniest guy I know.. ha!
On Sunday Skibowl had gotten several inches of new snow and with my new skis I felt like I was really starting to shred again. I was skiing purposely with a lot of energy and gradually was taking bigger and bigger drops until I decided to try a pretty hairy line underneath the lift with a good 15 footer where I had to clear an extremely narrow chute or land on rock or ice. I made the drop exactly where I wanted to and felt myself sink into a nice deep powder drift but with trees quickly approaching and me with a lot of speed I had to turn fast... and hit hardpack. I felt my left knee pop twice and grind a bit and I came to a slow sliding stop. Several people on the lift above gave a yell at what was a pretty sweet cliff drop, but they had no idea of the pain, and even worse, the fear that was setting in. In 2004 I blew my ACL on my right knee and after a $15,000 surgery, metal pins, a ligament from a corpse, and a couple months of recovery I knew what might be in store for me and that my season was possibly over. I skied down to Chris and stated I was done for the day and wanted a beer in the warming hut. After some time and much thought and testing of my knee I realized that it probably wasn’t my ACL as
when I destroyed that I was in extreme pain and couldn’t walk on the leg at all. I decided to put some snow in a plastic bag on it and chill for a couple hours while Emily and Chris took a few more runs till they were tired. We headed down the mountain at 2pm and I was able to click into both skis and put a tiny bit of weight on my left but it was so unstable I had to be very careful. On the ride home and talking with Chris I began to realize that I may have hyper-extended it. I didn’t see it bend sideways like my right did when my acl blew so I have high hopes!
We got back in time to Corvallis for Emily to make our Watershed soccer game. I felt really bad telling the whole team that I was definitely done for the season but not being able to pivot on one leg pretty much eliminates any soccer abilities. Thankfully our team still won. Perhaps if I had just put my glasses in my bag instead of on my chest my legs would have had more strength and it wouldn’t have happened.... I’ll never know. So, I now write this terrified of seeing a doctor and learning that I might need another surgery on my other knee. This season will be a great season and I had big plans for getting in shape and doing some serious spring backcountry skiing. Guess I’ll have to keep my fingers crossed! The picture in this post is what I looked like after my first surgery!
On Monday night we had all our friends come over to watch the BCS Championship game of the Oregon Ducks vs. Auburn. I really thought that the Ducks were going to crush them but the shear size of the SEC players vs. our PAC-10 guys was
too much to overcome. As an OSU Beaver fan it was hard to cheer for our rivals but they are still from Oregon and it was the PAC-10 so Emily I did. Scott, Danielle, Colin, Tim, Lindsay, Cathy, Kevin, Alexa, and Jason all came over and most people brought snacks. Tim even cooked a couple pizzas! Ultimately the Ducks lost in the last seconds with a field goal kick from Auburn. They had plenty of chances to capitalize in the game but a series of poor decisions (mostly running plays down the middle towards the huge Auburn defense cost us the game. I guess the upside of it is that we won’t have to listen to all the bragging next year by the dumb Ducks fans when they come to play us again at Cival War.... The Duck has been cooked, but with Jacquiz Rogers on the same day announcing he would be going pro and not returning next season our Beavers may no longer smell like roses either!
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