Falls on Fly Creek

Falls on Fly Creek
Originally uploaded by SeabeeCook

I was envious of my brother's ambulance ride in the early 1960s when we lived in Fresno. Although my death-defying attempt to stop an automobile with my bicycle was serious, mom transported my to the hospital in the backseat of the family car. Michael's similar accident one year later gave him the honor of being the first on my generation to make the same journey in the back of an an ambulance.

Content to stay out of the backseat of an ambulance, I've lived my life in the 46 years since the accident in relatively good health. That was until yesterday, when -- indirectly as a result of climbing down the rock embankment on Sunday's photographic adventure -- I rode in the back of Medic 48 from my home to Marshal Hospital in Placerville.

I awoke at 5 a.m. Tuesday with excruciating pain in my left-upper leg, pain that was more like a day-long leg cramp. I finally called 911 about 2 p.m. when I realized that my leg wasn't getting better and there was no one to take me to the hospital -- my wife is visiting the grandkids, my mother was out all day and my son (who doesn't drive) was in school. The doctor said it looks like tendonitis.

So, it looks like I'll have to par back some of my photographic jaunts until my leg heals. It looks like I won't be climbing dowm any rock embankments soon.