Thanksgiving Weekend 2010

This Thanksgiving weekend was very memorable for many reasons, one of them not good. 10/10/10 was definitely an unlucky day for us, although it could have been much worse.

So for the weekend I went to Saltspring Island to my parents' new house where my two little sisters also live. My brother Farley and his girlfriend Jenny, and my sister Rebecca and her common-law man Eric, and my other brother Ben also went there for the weekend. We had 10 people in a 2-bedroom + cottage/shed place. Ben's girlfriend Kyla and Jenny and Farley's friend Alex also visited during the weekend.

So those of us coming from the mainland were picked up by my dad and sisters on Saturday afternoon and we decided to go play a round of disc golf. I haven't played that much recently so I now suck at it but it's lots of fun and Saltspring has a nice course. Unfortunately it started to rain harder and so we got quite wet. We also had agreed to meet my sister at a certain time because she wanted to wander around town instead of play. So we ran out of time and I only did 15 holes. I found someone's lost disc with no name on it though so that's good because I recently lost a couple discs.

So later that day we celebrated my birthday because I won't see most of my family again until a while after my birthday. Mom made one of my favourite meals, firecracker casserole, and then we had some birthday cake and ice cream.

Some of us also played Robo Rally which is one of my favourite board games. I brought a few boards games with me. We played a lot of board games over the weekend and I won many times.

So the next day the sun was shining and the rain had stopped even though that wasn't in the forecast. We thought this was awesome and a great day to go for a big hike.

It was a beautiful day but the mountain did not like us. The mountain is Mt Maxwell and the lookout gives more than a 180 degree view of south Saltspring Island and Vancouver Island.

We wanted to hike down from here to the valley below and then have my mom come pick us up.


Of course we couldn't hike straight down because it was a cliff. There's my siblings and my mom in the top left corner of the photo. So what we had to do was hike along the cliffs and bluffs until it gradually got easy enough to go down and cut back around to below the cliffs.

Ok, so then my sister saw a lizard.

Anyway, Ben and my mom were going to meet us later at the bottom so we said goodbye to them and started out.

It was a nice hike for a little while. We jumped across some little cracks and at some places we had to use our hands to get up or down over some rocks. Unfortunately the rocks were a little bit wet from the day before.

We came across some parts of rock like this where people had put in clips for rock climbing up them.

It was near one of these that the unfortunate accident happened. Here I was with my sister Natalie and she was taking a photo of the view. Rebecca and Eric were behind us and my dad had gone on a little ahead below us. So then I went down the next little bit and I was out of site of everyone else. At that point Natalie was going to take a photo of my dad who was below her. Then I hear Natalie say "Oh..dad, are you alright? Are you OK?" and my dad started cursing.

So then I came around the corner and my dad was lying on the slope with his head downhill from his legs and he's holding his leg and his binoculars are all twisted and dangling. His leg had a few gashes in it with a nasty one on his knee and one below his knee that went all the way into the bone! There was blood done his leg but it didn't seem to be bleeding much. I was so stunned and I didn't immediately know what to do.

My dad must have been in a lot of pain but one of the first things he said was to get his binoculars off of him so I helped get the strap from those off of his head and his arm while he turned himself right side up.

Then my sister arrived and took charge. She had recently taken a first aid course for her work. She also had a small first aid kit. We poured some water on the wounds and then I took off my shirt and they tied it tight around his leg to put pressure on the wound. He could still feel his toes and he didn't break any bones.

My dad kept apologizing for ruining the hike, and even at one point said we could continue without him, which was ridiculous. So then we started to hike back up to the parking lot because we were much closer to it than the bottom. We helped my dad climb up and down the steep parts while he hobbled along but the path was quite narrow at some places.

My dad suggested a couple of us go ahead and get a ride from someone at the parking lot. Natalie and I hurried ahead and I ran into the parking lot just as my mom was pulling out. It turns out the two of them had sat at the top for a while and then slowly made their way back to the van following a little bird. It was lucky for us because they were able to give us all a ride back down the mountain and over to the hospital.

It is really good my family now lives on an island that has a hospital. My dad used the first aid kit from the car to help his leg a little as we made our way to the hospital. At the hospital we waited for a few hours while the doctor cleaned up the wounds, tried to find the chip of bone that was missing, and did some stitching and then put 38 staples into my dad's leg. I am extremely grateful nothing worse happened to my dad or any of us and that we got to the hospital quickly and they were able to see him right away.

So after my dad was all bandaged up we helped him into the van and then we drove home and my mom tried to keep it slow driving along the twisty roads. At home my dad was able to hobble up the porch stairs by himself. For the rest of my visit my dad slept a lot or watched TV in his recliner but unfortunately my parents bedroom is upstairs but not behind a closed door and there were a lot of us squished into the living room.

So I setup some of the patio furniture on the bluff down the hill from the house to try and give him a little peace and quiet. We played a game of Settlers of Catan and my mom brought us some popcorn and beer. It was not as epic a location as playing Risk on the shores of Galiano and my 13 year old sister won (she had no beer) but it was still lots of fun. It also got our minds off the earlier part of the day. Ben didn't play but took some photos of the game with my camera.

He also took some photos of Triscuit.

Later that night we had a big Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, stuffing and two pies for dessert but my dad slept through it. He had some later but it's too bad that he was not able to eat with us. We were all thankful for much the same thing - that nothing worse happened that day.

Monday we mostly stuck around the house because we didn't want to go off on any big adventures without my dad and wanted to make sure he was recovering ok. But, again we didn't want to spend all day being noisy in his space.

So there were some antics with this bird that
Natalie loves so much but who actually belongs to Emily.

The bird went into the basket.

They also put the bird on the clothesline.

So the bird went for a bit of a zipline.

I also spent a little time up on the living roof...
but the door closed on us and Farley wouldn't let us back in for a bit.

Then in the afternoon we decided to give my dad full peace and quiet for a little bit and so we walked over to a farm where they make and sell lots of fancy cheeses. They also sell olives from around the world. I bought some cheese that has hot chilis in the bottom. It was really good!

I had to take another photo of Trisuit because she has so much fun peering in the many windows now from the porch that wraps around most of their house.

Oh yes, and my little sister who is much heavier than she used to be insisted on getting a shoulder ride still. She reminds me of Gollum in this photo. Yikes! I also gave my mom a piggy back ride during the walk back from the farm. She's a lot lighter than Natalie.

Overall the one word to describe the weekend is "memorable". Aside from the injury my dad suffered it was a fun weekend with the family. My dad is currently having a tough time recovering but he's a tough guy and I expect he'll get through it in less time than the average person.