I still have a bit of gravel coming out of my hair and I can't (yet) wash my right arm nor left leg due to a cast from my left hand mid fingers up to and encompassing my left elbow .I can't wash my back either as one of my previous injuries makes it impossible to reach my right arm behind my back....
I'm hoping tam can find me a long handled bath brush to wash behind me with .
Shirley bought me some masking tape and then against her wishes she dug out some tall and narrow kitchen waste basket plastic trash bags, I plan to wrap them over my cast tightly and tape to keep the water out, I had a corner shower installed at her house some years ago after another accident, at that time I also purchased a tri-cornered shower stool I can safely sit on and close the shower's door .
I bet it was hard for Tam to say I ride safely, I don't have sport bikes nor do I _ever_ race because I'm askeert of crashing
. in motocycling we have several sayings : "A.T.G., A.T.T." this means all the gear, all the time and yes, I am quite sure it has saved my life as well as reduced my injuries in my two crashes .
Chrissy, sorry to hear you broke your wrist ~ when I raised my arm at the crash site I could see how badly my left wrist was dislocated, a sort of "U" shape between in hand and the end of my arm . it hurts like bugger - all, sadly I never passed out during the crash .
I'm sure I was going too fast, I know I was going 42mph as I'd slowed down and down shifted into third gear because of the up coming curves and because there, near the bottom of the mountain is always increased traffic, many tourists who are scared and drive too slowly and refuse to yield plus racer bois and hot rodders who don't think ahead and so often cause collisions .
I didn't see the gravel/sand and I should have been looking closer ~ I've been riding that particular road since 1971 and know it's dangers .
Please pardon my poor typing and lack of caps etc. ~ this is very hard but if I don't keep up it'll overwhelm me .
Our Teenaged Foster boys have all been great ~ concerned and want to be helpful although I'm keen to figure out what to do on my own .
Maybe time to re watch 'rear window' with (iirc) Jimmy Stewart again ? .
Here's a thing I wrote to save time as so many are asking me what happened :
on monday 6.26 i saddled up my 2010 Solo sT, topped up the oil and tires, headed north west out of pasadena in the i210 freeway to sand canyon then west on angeles forest highway to fort tejon road to valyermo road to big pines highway to big pines where i turned left onto angeles crest highway, 6 miles into wrightwood, ca, where i topped off the fuel tanks and enjoyed a bright blue cream soda (! the label didn't mention it being any sort of carbonated beverage, i just like blue colored drinks and it was the cheapest @ .99 cents) .
getting back on the a.c.h. i planned to ride to newcomb's ranch for breakfast but discovered 'road closed ' signs slightly [i][u]after[/u][/i] the last place to turn off, made a careful u-turn in a turn out and headed back the way i came up, enjoying the cool fresh country air and being glad that even when riding through santa clarita where big wild fires were burning, i encountered zero smoke .
as the day heated up (it was a scorcher) i kept riding through cool spots here and there and was thinking : back before [b][color=#0040FF]ac[/color][/b], knowing the cool areas would help choosing where to build your farm/ranch house .
returning to the angeles forest highway i turned south on it and rode to upper big tijunga road, followed that north to the a.c.h. again and took it northeast, almost immediately encountering traffic halts for road repairs where they were clearing minor slides of rocks and gravel plus a few spots were pavement repairs meant no pavement, by 11am i reached world famous newcomb's ranch and had a nice bowl of red with cornbread and several glasses of ice water .
only a few other motocyclists were there, i chatted with the barkeep who's a family friend, he was installing neat new saddle bags to his late model bmw moto ~ they look like jerry cans .
he recently bought an old (pre 1965) vw beetle cut down into a baja bug and told me the shifter bushing i'd suggested he replace, made a [b]YUUGE[/b] improvement in shifting ~ apparently he didn't need a new clutch and rebuilt transmission after all (TIP: when a mechanic gives you simple free advice instead of making YOU pay for repair$, try it) .
then i saddled up again and headed back down the a.c.h. to - wards home, at about the mile 29 marker i eased into a left sweeper turn going 42mph in third gear and suddenly realized the fog line was coming up at me fast, no way to avoid crashing ~ my last clear thought before basically riding into the granite mountain @ 40mph was "oh, sh*t ~ here we go" followed by loud banging noises, me cart wheeling a few times, feeling my helmet ([b][color=#FF0000]ATG,ATT ![/color][/b] hit twice before i was sliding on my back feet first in the s/b lane, seeing my cane go skittering past me .
I was about 12 miles from home, sigh .
the bike is ruined ~ the forks broke from the initial impact, pretty much every mm of the entire bike is smashed, bent, twisted or scraped :( .
me, i broke my left wrist in what one of my surgeons said was the "perfect trifecta" of ruination . it took slightly over five hours for two surgeons, one a hand specialist to complete the job and both said to expect life long chronic pain and reduction of movement from it .
we'll see .
i also broke the load bearing surfaces on the two long bones in my left gel, tibia and fibula i think they're called .
i just got home from the hospital friday night and am learning to do things with only one arm/leg . whew .
the [b]WAH[/b]mbulance crew managed to loose my wallet and everything in it :x except my driver's license ([b]TIP:[/b] be poor and broke when you loose all your credit cards, no [b][color=#408040]cash[/color][/b] to loose :P .
so, that's it for now, i have weekd worth of e-mails to wade through but will be checking in now and then .
[b][size=200][color=#FF0000]HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY ![/color][/size][/b] :cheers: .
