Emigration Canyon

Saturday morning dawned early following a somewhat sleepless night (due in part I think to a little nervousness at the 65 mile ride ahead). I pulled into Jack's driveway at 7:00am to find a distressed Dorothy, Jack's wife telling me that he had just been taken to the hospital via ambulance! As he was getting ready for the ride that morning, he became dizzy and nauseated, his legs wouldn't support him and his eyes darted back and forth. I followed Dorothy to the hospital where he had a full workup of various tests. When we arrived, the Doc came in to talk about his first supposition; severe vertigo. Nevertheless, he spent the better part of the day undergoing numerous tests, with vertigo remaining the verdict. Come to find out, another co-worker, Cindy, experienced much of the same symptoms 2 years ago, and her diagnosis was the same; vertigo caused by the inner-ear crystals falling out of place. We hope to see Jack back at work soon, and walking with balance.

After spending an hour or so in the ER, I left Jack and Dorothy and met up with the 3 other riders of the day, Julia, Radomir and Terry. They had decided to bike up Emigration Canyon in lieu of the long loop. While they had started at our work location, I met them at Hogle Zoo at the mouth of the canyon. What a gorgeous, if somewhat chilly, fall day in the canyon! I had never ridden it before, but of all the local canyons, it is by far the easiest. Nonetheless, it still felt like quite an accomplishment to make it to the summit. After a little breezy and chilly break at the top, with an amazing view, it was back down the hill. I think that canyon gets more cyclist traffic than car traffic, which is wonderful!

While we didn't yet do the metric century, we are all hoping and praying that Jack will be back in full form soon and we'll be following in his tracks around the valley in celebration of his birthday today.