Testing testing

We've got 3 tests tomorrow. Our final for our EMT course. Our National Practical exam followed by our National written exam... we'll be studying.

Mom and Dad get here today as well... bad timing - but at least they'll get to see our new environment.

This past week we met Ezra - www.ezrasexpedition.com - he rode on through the town of Crested Butte. He was at Fantasy Ranch when I rode by on my bike. I was stopping in there to see how much it would be for my parents to go on a ride... Thinking he looked like an employee - I asked him what the scoop was. He proceeded to tell me his story and that he wasn't from around these parts. He's riding his horses around the world. I ended up inviting him over for spaghetti and some hot tubbing. I think he enjoyed getting to hang with people his own age.

He left the following morning to continue on his trip - off to Aspen - then Steamboat - then Laramie - then Cheyenne. Eventually he'll be off to NY - then boat to Spain - then down through Africa - then boat over to Australia - then boat up to Alaska - through BC - through California and back home to Chico.

He didn't get far - in fact he headed up Maroon Pass and accidentally walked across some rotten snow (snow that has had water runoff eat away it's base - picture a bridge made of snow) and he and his horses fell off a bit of a cliff. Liz and I returned home to find him and our friend Mouna on the couch. He had broken his shoulder and hit his head pretty good. Needless to say - he's been hanging around town the past few days - getting better and letting his horses rest. These Rocky Mountains are unforgiving.

I'm off to study.

Clinicals - EMT

Our EMT class started that Monday. It is 5 days a week from 8:30-5:30pm - nothing short of exhausting.







Our clinicals were the first weekend that we had in CB (the 10th and the 11th) so that meant a return to the front range. We took cottonwood pass up and over from Crested Butte to Buena Vista - it was gorgeous. As the pics show...

The clinicals were in Colorado Springs in the ER for 10 hours and on an ambulance for 12 hours. They were an incredible experience to say the least.

My clinicals weren't nearly as exciting as Liz's - which in some ways is a good thing. She had a severe trauma with a 25 year old girl that had been ejected from a car. She bled out and died. Liz also had a stab wound to the head come in during her shift... I had an incredibly sad trauma case come in during mine: a 6 year old girl who had been flown in on flight for life - her mom and two of her sisters had been killed in the head-on rollover accident. She apparently had been hanging by her seatbelt next to her dead family for about 30 minutes till the ambulance finally arrived.... as they put her on the exam table she was handed a teddy bear - which she promptly hugged tight against her tiny bloody chest... yeah - it yanked on the heart strings for sure. I also had a lady with a severe abdominal blockage... most likely caused by the popcorn that she had eaten every day for the past week despite her Dr's strict orders not to. She was extremely aggitated and passed out (I caught her and put her back on her bed) - it finally got to a point where she was screaming that God was there and that her mom was standing over her (her mom had died years ago) - she got upgraded to critical (the docs were saying that it's common for a patient to die once they start saying these things.... weird.

It's finally our first weekend to relax and hang out - so I'm off to do that.

We moved... finally an Update!

So our last days of work were both on June 2nd (my dad's birthday - how appropriate). We then proceeded to pack up all of the remaining stragglers into boxes and loaded up the rocket box, the car, and upon figuring out that the car wasn't quite big enough... the Uhaul trailer.




We left Boulder Saturday afternoon around 7pm and headed off to a new life in Crested Butte. Leaving the gorgeous flatirons behind... perhaps we'll be back?















Upon our arrival - the "few steps" that we'd been warned of had apparently bred rampantly during our drive up and presented us with 4 stories to the front door. Not ideal for a bum knee to say the least. We promptly passed out in our futon bed with a bunk overtop (read: guest room).




Sunday we awoke early to begin the unloading and unpacking. Liz had to do all the heavy lifting up and down the steps - as my knee could not hang with the plight of the 4 flights! Guess I owe her...







The View from our front door...