Sharon had a bad day and a bad break…

With a promised sunny day we decided to head south and check out Tillamook and its renowned cheese and ice cream factory. They make all the Tillamook cheese in this small little coastal town. They make over 167,000 pounds of Tillamook Cheese each and every day at this small looking factory. We were able to enjoy samples of several cheeses liking both the sharp cheese and the habanero jack cheese a lot. The sample of the pumpkin ice cream wasn’t all that good so we bought our own scoop of a flavor we preferred – good ice cream but we like Texas Blue Bell and the east coast Hershey's better.

Leaving the factory we started to head back slowly checking out all the beach cutouts and trails to the beach. Each visit to the ocean we were greeted with the familiar sound of crashing waves, the coolness of the sea breeze, occasional sights of magnificent sea stacks (especially those of Cannon Beach) and beautiful beaches.

Just south of Cannon Beach we pulled into a spot that has a trail to the beach that passes through a real nice stand of older growth forest. Lots of people with surf boards were heading down the trail. As we walked down the nice path admiring the large Sitka Spruces we heard a creek and decided to go take a peak at it. This is when our day took a turn for the worse.

I looked over the edge of a 8-10 foot drop off into the creek and Sharon passed me to look herself when she seemingly disappeared! She had stepped on some soggy ground that either gave way or was vegetation only and off she went over the edge, head first into the rocky creek below.

All I saw was her feet heading down and as soon as I got to the edge she had already up righted herself, completely soaked in the cold water and told me she thought she broke her wrist. Not good! So I dropped myself over the edge to get to her and realized it was going to be very difficult to get her up over the 8-10 foot ledge with a broken wrist. So we walked a little ways upstream with me holding her as to not allow her to fall again on the slippery rocks and injure her wrist further.

We found a spot where the ledge was only about four feet high. I found a huge rock and placed it for her stand on and then I lifted her up on the ledge where she was able to stand. We were then able to take the 10 minute walk back to the car. Once in the car we needed to find the nearest hospital so we used our Garmin and located one about 25 minutes north in Seaside, Oregon.

Into the emergency room Sharon went as I parked the car. She checked herself in and then we waited for doctors, x-rays, more doctors… you get the picture. They did their best to set the fracture of her radius, she has a Colles’ fracture, but were unable to get it “just right.” So they splinted her and stitched up her cut knee and the next day we headed to a see hand specialist in Portland. They told her she did a “good job” on her wrist and as a result Sharon will have surgery on her wrist on Friday.

Well there you have it… a full timer’s nightmare… Sharon is doing well and with the pain meds feeling no pain. Wish her well and hope that her surgery goes without a hitch on Friday. Sharon thinks the worst thing that happened was she destroyed her Droidx as it fell in the creek so we will have to figure out a temporary solution to get a phone until our contract runs out this fall.

Fortunately for us we had already made reservations in Portland and we arrived yesterday at Fairview RV Park. We planned to stay a week but may need to stay a bit longer… oh well, at least we have all the time in the world…