While I was at work Monday night another nurse who was on call and quite the nature enthusiast (Jessica, the same one that took us to the Boy Scout Lake tide pools) text messaged me about taking the kids up Old Women’s in the morning around 10:00AM. That would mean no to very little sleep after working all night. We could stay up and go on the hike and then just turn in early I wanted to sleep that night anyway. It would be worth it. Jessica is so fun, her kids and my kids are the same ages and get along really well. It was supposed to be a sunny and hot day too these were the reasons as to why we could not turn down this offer. I was able to sneak in about 35-40 minutes of sleep after getting my crew up and ready to go. We piled into the car when I checked my text messages I noticed that Jessica had bumped the hike time back an hour so that I could get a bit more sleep. We then unpiled out of the car. I was able to get another 45 minutes of sleep Yay! I wasn’t feeling too good but it was going to be fine once we started hiking. Sure enough it was. I perked back up and actually felt more than energized for the climb. Those precious minutes of sleep helped. Look at all these fun hikes…too many to do in three months 😟.
The climb seemed like less work than the last time. I thought the kids would have a little more trouble with it, they did so well and loved it. It seemed like they could have hiked another four miles.
Isn’t this the sweetest little lake. We loved the hike up to the lake it was beautiful. It was so sunny and nice and it was tucked down from the summit enough that it was protected from the wind. The kids played, we picnicked, and then took a little nap in the sun. We could have stayed all day.
Aren’t these two mini hikers super cute!?! They did four miles without any complaints. They loved it.
We went home and changed out of our sweaty clothes and showered before heading out to Chiniak. We had a dinner date and our job was to pick up some fire wood. We stopped and picked up two presto logs because that is all Walmart had and a bag of ice. We planned to stop and pick up drift wood from the beach on the way to have a campfire and roast hot dogs and marshmallows. We loaded up with a few logs from Mayflower beach then continued on our way. It was a little too early for dinner so we walked on the beach first then came back and started the fire.
The drift wood and a few pieces of actual firewood was perfect for getting the fire going and cooking the dogs and marshmallows. After the cooking was all done we threw on the presto logs and enjoyed watching the fire burn while visiting and drinking coffee. It doesn’t get dark here until after midnight so we ended up staying pretty late until the (3 hour) presto logs were pretty much done burning.
We have been missing all of our normal summer camping opportunities so this Was quite a treat. The photo below was taken at exactly 10:00pm Chad would not look so dark, but I’m shooting right into the sun.
The kids were playing really well together with their favorite activity being jumping off the stumps around camp into the tall grass. Around 8:15pm in eagerness Logan gave Eve a push off the stump before she was quite ready and she landed wrong. She was crying pretty hard, but her arm was still pretty straight so we iced her arm and gave her some ibuprofen. She sat in my lap and after a bit of crying fell asleep. She woke up before we left and was for the most part ok as long as there were no position changes, but if there was a change in position or anything touched her arm she would scream. At that point we knew we would be making a very late night trip to the ER. The sky on our way back to Kodiak (1hr drive). Taken about 11:45pm.
We were the only ones in the ER so we were in and out pretty quick. Eve was tired it had been a long day.
Sure enough her arm was broken. The right radius had a buckle fracture that would require immobilization and possibly casting for at least four weeks. She was a trooper answering all the Dr. and nurses questions by herself with us only having to add a few things. We discharged home at 12:20 AM.
She was not impressed when I asked her to smile, lol. At this point we had all been up too late. I had been awake since about 1:00pm (36 hours by the time we got home and got everyone tucked into bed) the day before except for the brief morning nap between work and the hike.
Owens Endeavors 