My visit to the Mile Hile City

I don't have any quiltiness to show but we have had some excitement around here lately. We were planning on going to visit my DS in Vail in September but last Friday as I was wandering the supermarket aisles, I got a call from my son, or so I thought. When I answered it was a doctor from Vail Medical Center informing me that Alex had been involved in an accident while riding his longboard ( for those of you unfamiliar, it is a skateboard but longer and used primarily for cruising around). Apparently, he had time between jobs and was returning a video to the library. He was on the paved bike trail that goes through Vail and as he turned a corner, there were bikers ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE PATH. Alex tried to swerve around them and lost his balance. He fell hard and was knocked unconscious. The bikers who were in the way took off but thankfully, a woman saw him fall and called 911. She stayed with him til the ambulance arrived and tried to visit him at Vail but was not allowed since she wasn't family. However, she did write him a note and left her number. We have been in touch with her to thank her for stopping and helping Alex.

When I got the call Friday morning, he had spent the night at Vail and they were transporting him to Denver as he had a small brain bleed on the CT scan and Vail doesn't have a neurologist on staff. After talking to the neurologist in Denver Friday night, Bob and I decided to fly out there. We left at 5:3o am EST from Hartford and got into Denver around 2:00 pm.

Alex spent a couple of days in ICU for observation but thankfully, he is going to be fine. He has a few stitches in his head and some ringing in his ear which should go away over the next month.

We took him back to Vail on Monday afternoon and got a brief tour of the area, which is absolutely gorgeous. This picture is of Alex at Vail Ski Resort with some of the rails that are being built and will be installed in the terrain park where he works this coming winter.



Here is me and Alex and the longboard. The ambulance crew left it at Vail Medical. Vail has a special holding area for skis, snowboards and apparently skateboards that come into the ER. We picked his board up on Monday.

Here's Alex and Dad. This river/stream runs behind Alex's condo in Vail. During the rafting season, he took rafters down the river as a guide while working for the river rafting company.

We headed back to Denver Monday afternoon and decided to stay an extra day to take a look around the city. We absolutely LOVED Denver. The people are super friendly and helpful, the city is nicely laid out with lots of public transportation so it's easy to get around. There are lots of fabulous restaurants and some good local beer. We went to the Botanical Gardens which were gorgeous and even got to take in a Rockies game on Tuesday night. The tickets ranged from $4 to $50! If you are a Red Sox or Yankees fan, you know what a bargain that is. We got tickets the day of the game, 10 rows from the field on the first base line. Coors Field is really nice and although the Rockies lost ( they need some help in the bullpen) we had a great time and met some really nice people.

All in all, what started out as a nightmare ended on a good note. We stayed at the Sheraton Downtown in Denver and I can't say enough good things about the staff there. They were sooo accomodating during this crazy time, from sending up a basket so we had some snacky stuff in the room, extending our check out time with no additional charges or hassles, letting us keep Alex in the room for no additional charge and having the van take us to and from the hospital whenever we wanted. Mr. Bonilla, the front desk supervisor, was an angel and made this part of our trip easy.

Don't know how much quilting I'll be getting done in the next few weeks. We are headed to Baltimore on Friday for our Red Sox weekend. Dandylion, I'll be getting in touch with you by email so we can hopefully meet on Saturday!

Til then, Quilt til you Wilt!~