Aaron (02/29/20)

Coincidences? Nah! I’ve frequently said I don’t believe in coincidences, but sometimes you have to wonder.

One Sunday I’d scheduled a day of web related chores—updating websites, organizing artwork and photos for site updates, taking new artwork photos for. My friends were going to settle into the Lazy Boy chairs and watch Aussie Rules football.

I got up around 3 a.m., logged in and realized there was no internet—not usual for our normally consistent internet provider. Called support and found out there was an outage in the area, with no eta in sight.

After several hours with no internet and the rest of the clan starting to wake up, we decided, since it was one of those spectacular southern California mornings, to head up to one of the local hiking trails—nothing like spending the day enjoying the wonders of nature and looking down on the LA basin.

On our way up the nearly 5-mile hike to the top we passed the normal weekend hikers, including a guy in spectacular shape running at full speed down the trail. We moved aside and gave him the right-of-way, and got a “thank you” as he sped down the trail at rocket speed. Damn, he was in good shape!

Several minutes later we reached the top of the trail, spent some time checking out the scenery that surrounded the top of the 8,000-foot elevation "notch", munched down the energy bars everyone had in their backpacks, and started the 5-mile trek down the trail.

Surprisingly, as we rounded a corner of the trail, sitting on a rock on the side, was the guy we had passed minutes before. As we passed him, we got the courtesy nod when asked how he was doing, and we proceeded down the trail.

But I felt something was just not right. Thirty minutes ago this guy was racing at full steam down the trail, and at the speed he was going should have been in the parking lot by now—instead, he was parked on a rock just a few bends from the top.

I decided to go back and see if everything was ok, and as I got back to where he was sitting I didn't even need to ask if he was fine—I saw the reason why he was sitting on the rock, one of his ankles was swollen to many times normal size. He said he had stepped on a rock the wrong way racing down the trail and had sprained or broken his ankle. At that point he could not walk or stand on that leg.

Crud, we were more than 4 miles from the parking lot, with a long jaunt downhill to get there.

I yelled at the other guys to come back up to where we were, explained what was going on, and we decided from this point down to the parking lot, there was no other solution but an arduous three-legged hobble to get this guy down off the mountain.

There were four of us, so we rotated out assisting Aaron down the hill to get to his truck. Learned a lot about the guy in the several hours it took to get down the trail.

As we approached his truck, Aaron now in even more pain from the adventure, grimaced and said his truck was a stick—OK, no driving for him.

We split up the group, took our truck and his down to the local urgent care center and spent several hours with him getting x-rays, ankle wrapped up for release, and getting him to his apartment.

The day wasn’t exactly what any of us planned, including Aaron. When chatting with Aaron during the hike back down the hill, he laughed a bit, saying he wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to get the help he needed. There was no phone reception at that location, and, he conceded, pride had been irrationally taking over him asking for help.

Glad our internet was down! And surprisingly, so was Aaron's internet—that was the reason he went for his jog/hike.

By the time we all got home, the internet outage was over.

Aaron is now one of our clan. He's wasn't going to be hiking for some time, but after a few months, his ankle was back to normal—though he said he wouldn't be racing anybody down the mountain anytime soon.

January 2020 update on Aaron! With ankle completely healed, and a new pair of hi-top hiking boots on his feet, we have all been back on the trail and Aaron's speed and confidence have returned. A wedding date has been established for Aaron and his gorgeous fiance, so my clan has a wedding and reception to look forward to.

And I understand there is going to be an "appropriate" change in the attire for wedding guests. More to come on this...

Well, as Covid did with many things, the planned wedding for Aaron and Tiff(any) might have been a casualty, but after seveal years of friendship with Aaron, I learned he was not easily detracted by anything.

His wedding was scheduled for July 2020, and if they had kept their plans to hold the wedding and reception indoors, that would not have happened. So they switched the venue out—big time. And more in line with their life style, their wedding and reception were held outdoors in the wilderness, with plenty of social distancing and beautiful breeze for all.

If was a wonderful event, nearly 200 people attended, even though Covid was in full swing. But being outdoors, and everybody masked, it was a wonderful event! They plan on having a 'proper' reception and honey moon once Covid has gone its course, and we are definitely looking forward to that—the reception, that is!

#hiking #Aaron #ankle #friendship #clan