Motorcycle Crash

  On May 10th Lowell Graber went for a joy ride along with 7 other buddies on motorcycles. What started out as a beautiful Saturday afternoon ride turned into a long ordeal that is still ongoing. Lowell crashed his motorcycle in British Colombia while riding up to the ferry that crosses Kootenay Lake. While going around a blind corner Lowell lost control and went flying off the road and down an embankment. He was airlifted to the Kootenay Regional Hospital where they preformed emergency surgery that evening. The next Tuesday he was transferred to Sacred Heart Medical center in Spokane, Washington where he is at presently. Unfortunately, Lowell & Kendra have no insurance and as you can imagine the hospital bills are enormous. If you would like to help their family please see this site that a few of his friends have made for them: www.graberfamily.org You can see videos of the crash scene and some pictures as well.

I went to a homeschool conference in Albuquerque, NM last week. Had an awesome time hanging out with old friends and making new ones. A bunch of us went for a hike on the La Luz trail. 9 miles at 12 % grade and finishes out  10,678 feet! I found out later that this was named one of the 12 most grueling trails in North America… I believe it. After 10,000 feet I hade a hard time getting acclimated to the low oxygen levels. After a few quick rest I was good to go however and made it all the way to the top with out a problem.

There is a tram which runs from the top of the Mt down to the valley floor. It supposed to be the longest tram in the world. We had planed on riding it back down. It was dark when we got to the top and very windy but the big problem was they shut the tram down! I guess the winds were to strong for it to operate safely.  Fortunately there’s a cell tower up there with lots of cell service. Ben Sayer called his folks and they drove ALL the way around the mountain and up to the top. It almost a 45 min drive! God bless them! Our legs were SO tired! I don’t think we could have made it back down the trail especially in the dark.

  Me, Christina Fowler and Noah Back giving a thumbs up to the the rest on the lower switchback.

Looking back down the mountian.

Daniel Watkins, very impressed. That rock formation on his left went up about three times what you see in the picture.

I always like to learn stuff. I try to learn something new EVERY day if possible. I will never forget that day’s lesson… NEVER LICK A PRICKLEY PEAR CACTUS!

No, I actually wasn’t THAT stupid but the end result was the same. I was having lots of fun picking the hard red “flowers” off the ends of the prickly pear cactus and throwing them at unsuspecting people. After the third one I found the top has a bunch of tiny prickles that stuck to my finger.. No problem, I quickly plucked them out except for the tiny ones. Then I tried using my teeth.. BAD MISTAKE. The prickles stuck on my lip. Now THAT was annoying. There was no way I could get them out. I finally borrowed Ben’s knife and got Daniel Fowler to dig em out of my lip much to the amusement of the rest of the gang. I can still feel the sore spot as I am typing… Any way. Lesson well learned

I am finally back to flying regularly  again. Here's some pictures a friend took the other day.

This is our house from the air.

Boundary County airport on final approach.

Well as most people say... sorry for not updating any sooner. I just dont update untill something interesting happens. Which as you can see has. I am on vacation. (wow, glad to get that off my chest!).

So here I am sitting in our RV at a campground in Moses Lake, WA. We spent last weekend at a friend’s place near Arlington, WA helping them remodel their house. I was quickly reminded why I chose to go into computers after spending a day tearing out old particle ceiling board from the 70's and removing fiber glass insulation. But we had lots of fun.

Saturday Josh Heading s and I went flying in a rental plane based out of the Arlington airport. For those aviation enthusiasts out there, yes this is THE Arlington airport that hosts the third largest EAA fly-in every year.

Here’s a picture I took with Josh’s camera out over the front of the plane.

Wednesday I’m flying out to Tennessee to the National Home Educators Leadership conference in Nashville. It should be really great. I have always enjoyed the conference. They usually have some great speakers and very helpful information. And I get to see lot’s of old friends.

Till next time!

Treasure Hunt!