The fall...

Friday, March 18, 2916

I’d already piled on over 11,000 steps when Kimberly and I exited the car at Headwaters Park in Geauga County.  It is one of my favorite parks – not for hiking but because it is the place I kayak when I want to see an eagle.  There are two nests on the body of water formed by a damming of the Cuyahoga River here and I have been fortunate enough to get some stunning pictures of the eagles in the past.  They should be in the nest at this point preparing to hatch a couple of eaglets. 

We walked through the camping area, which has been upgraded to include three lean-to’s with fireplaces.  We continued on the bridle trail, which winds along the lake’s edge for almost three miles, stopping to view the first eagle’s nest – a monster now as they have been expanding it for several years.  It looks to be in a very sturdy tree, which is a good thing since they will continue to add to it and nests can get up to a ton in weight.

We reached the end of the lake where Kimberly spotted an eagle in a tree a couple of hundred yards away.  On the return trip, we decided to leave the trail and hike through the woods the short distance to the water’s edge.  It required navigating a small creek, which I did first looking for the best rocks to place our feet.  I turned to point out the ones I used to Kimberly as she stood on a large, flat, sloped boulder at the edge of the creek.  And then she wasn’t standing.

Her feet went out from under her on what moss must have been on the rock.  She landed hard on her wrist and rolled to her side with her legs dangling in the water.  I hurried to her side to find she was in extreme pain, though I did not yet know where.  As I helped her to her feet, we could see her wrist was swelling.  She moaned as we walked the1.5 miles back to the car.  It didn’t take much time to decide a trip to the emergency room was in order.

Her wrist was broken and by the time we’d exited the hospital, all drug stores were closed, which meant filling a prescription for pain would have to wait until the following morning.  We did manage to get to 21,000 steps however, though I chose not to point out this plus to our hike. 

Bonus: 21,300 steps