ATV Adventures

Day 19, miles 4480, states 10


George here again.  This is getting to be my morning routine:  get up an hour before everyone else (that's what 26 years in the Army will do to you), let the dogs out, make some coffee and post to the blog.  For some reason, the blog is not letting me add pictures this morning.  I will have to check with Andi to see if I am doing something wrong. UPDATE:  After Natalie and I went for a nice, long walk on the beach this morning, I was able to fix the problem with some help from Google.




Cape Lookout State Park, OR

 We are in another of Oregon's fine state parks, Cape Lookout.  This one is just a little farther up the coast from our last stop.  There are no giant dunes here, but there is a lovely beach just a few hundred yards from our campsite.




Kirk Prepares to Tackle Dunes on ATV

 We thought we would surprise the kids yesterday morning by renting some ATV's and cruising the dunes.  The rental place even had a small ATV that Andi could ride.  I cautioned everyone about the dangers of ATV's (especially for novices like us).  Mom and Andi heeded my advice and kept to the "baby dunes" at a slow pace.  But Kirk and Alex (teenage boys!), raced away and up the biggest dunes they could find, forcing me to come rescue them a couple of times.  The girls headed back a little early, and I had to go searching for the boys

Alex Steers His Ride

again.  When I finally got to a tall enough dune, I spotted Alex waving at me, with Kirk lying on the ground beside his ATV, which was half burried in the sand.  This gave me quite a scare, but Kirk was just shaken up with some minor bumps and scrapes.  Alex and I were able to dig out his ATV and put Kirk "back in the saddle" long enough to limp back to the rental place.  Turns out Kirk had hit a drop off going a little too fast (imagine that), and "got some air".  I have to give Alex Kudos for keeping his head and sticking with his brother until he could signal me for help.

Andi and Mom Take a More Mild Pace

When we got back to the RV, Kirk complained that his wrist was hurting worse, so we decided to stop by the local ER in Florence and get him checked out.  We expected that this would pretty much consume the rest of our day, but we were pleasantly surprised to find the local ER the best of any small hospital we had ever seen.  They even had parking spaces for RV's!  The staff were quite friendly, and they had Kirk evaluated, x-rayed, and treated within an hour of our arrival.  We were flabergasted ("you should see how the Canadians react", the nurse told us with a grin). 
The ER doc gave Kirk a splint for his wrist pain (no fracture) and gently admonished us about the dangers of ATV riding (they'd had some much more serious injuries to kids recently, including a serious spinal injury).  We considered ourselves fortunate, and decided that our ATV riding days were over.  Natalie was so impressed with the ER, that she checked off another reason to like Oregon. 

Kirk Shows of his Wrist Splint in Front of ER in Florence, OR

Shortly after we got back on the road, we came across a Walmart and stopped for some supplies.  We had planned on making it a little farther up the coast, but after all of our adventures, we decided to stop here at Cape Lookout and call it a Day.  We stopped by the beach and got settled in early enough for me to release some of the day's stress with a little guitar practice (I think I was more shaken up by Kirk's crash than he was).  Natalie made some pasta for dinner, and I watched a little bit of Shrek (#1) with the kids before passing out.