az:Clarkdale to Sedona ride to ruins, rocks & emt's

Almost every ride we do is a little different, has new experiences, or teaches us something. This last ride we did had some good riding trails, plus some sobering philosophical thoughts to ponder after our ride.

This last tuesday, Kim & I met in Sedona, & rode out to Clarkdale to meet Tom for the start of our ride. We were doing a loop in the verde valley, starting in clarkdale & going up to sedona. Tom came over mingus mountain & down into the verde valley through jerome.. a chilly 8k' mountain pass.


From Clarkdale. The bikes: Kim's klx250, my wr250x, & Tom's wr250r. All of these bikes are highly modded & most are very clean & scratch free.

Here's a video clip of me following Kim up sycamore pass toward the sedona red rocks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCZ0ixDrqBw

More video.. We did some bike swapping here. I'm on Kim's klx, Tom is on my wrx, & Kim is on Tom's wrr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7nAE6Vl98g

A nice rocky section of trail toward loy butte..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDTjcPDRHUY


We got to an overlook of loy butte.. there were some ruins along this mountain, & we were going to check them out.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqpD3BtvPQM



Everyone decked out in their matching riding gear.. Kim, Tom, Scotty. We were planning on having a vote for the best dressed rider.. cast yours now!



Tom flexing his muscles to look like a body builder.. good thing there's some nice scenery to distract our view from Tom & his monster bike.



Kim double checking my gps readings with his trusty paper map.. but he thought we were about 30 miles west of where we actually were..


The ride to the ruins parking. This is the Honanki ruins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzhl8RdBgkc


We decided that it would be cool to see the ruins. I've lived in sedona for 25 years & haven't seen these ruins.. i guess they weren't going anywhere. Anyway, we saw them this day. They were pretty cool.. you could get much closer than with many other ruin sites. So we hiked the loop to the ruins.. about 3/4 mile, with some climbs up.





There was a tour group there, & Kim thought they might ask Tom if he was there during the construction of the houses here..





But Tom claimed he didn't work on this job.. or maybe he just couldn't remember.. memory is a funny thing.


The hike back to the bikes.

It was now about 2pm.. we hadn't had any lunch, which is always the highlight of any of our rides. We still had a couple of hours of riding to do, so we thought we'd better get geared up & go. Kim was fiddling with something in his tank bag. He kept pulling out his cell phone & looking at it. It was off. Finally, i went over & asked him about it. I admired the new phone, then put it back in the bag. He reached in & pulled it out again, asking if it was mine. I said no & put it back. He got it out again. Then he started asking what was going on.. he felt very loopy, like he was dreaming. Tom & I decided to take our helmets off & sit for a while with Kim. We got some trail mix & some water for him to drink. He didn't know where we were, & repeated himself several times. We chit chatted for a bit, then Tom suggested i ride home, get my truck & come back. I left, telling Tom not to take any chances & call 911 if he didn't improve.

I called Kim's wife when i got into town & left a message on their machine. It took me over an hour to get home, get my truck & start back. Kim's wife called me when i was going down the dirt road to where the bikes were. Tom had called 911 & the emt's had come & gotten Kim. Tom was waiting at the bikes. When i got there, it was after 4pm & the sun was hanging low. We loaded up both bikes & got off the dirt roads. Kim's wife called again & let me know they were at the sedona medical center, so we decided to stop there & visit. Kim was still loopy, but knew everyone. He wondered if he crashed & kept asking questions to try to put everything back together. The docs did some tests & ruled out stroke & other more serious possibilities. They concluded it was 'transient global amnesia'. I had never heard of it, & evidently it is a rare condition. They sent Kim home that night, with his memory the same.

It's been a couple of days, now, & it appears that's what it was. He has some more testing to do with the neurologists, but they seem convinced it was just a short term memory glitch. He remembers previous events, now, & everything from today & yesterday, but everything from the ride day is fragmented & dreamlike.

Kim seems normal now, & we're all optimistic that it is over. Perhaps he will chime in with some updates.

But except for the medical emergency, it was a great ride. The verde valley has some nice winter riding, with some great views.

scotty

rydnseek wrote:

All of these bikes are highly modded & most are very clean & scratch free.

Scratch free??? How do guys manage to keep'em like that???

Sorry to hear about Kim.....scary stuff.......sounds like you guys were fortunate to notice what was going on while you were all standing around.......could've been really scary if he got confused/disoriented while riding........glad he's feeling better now.....

Looking forward to heading over your way this Spring.....with my scratched up bike

Yeah, that would have been a little scary out on the trail. Stroke would have been the only thing going throu my mind.

*only one picture is showing for me...nothing else.

I think it was the youtube links that weren't working.. i tried embedding them with html, but evidently, this forum doesn't like it. It takes the html for the pics, just not the video embedding.. oh well.

On my blog i have the videos embedded, so you can watch them without having to navigate away from the page. Advrider also does this, but thumpertalk does not.. a forum specific option, it seems.

So the vids are here, now, but are just links.

scotty

Crawdaddy wrote:

rydnseek wrote:

All of these bikes are highly modded & most are very clean & scratch free.

Scratch free??? How do guys manage to keep'em like that???

I said 'most'.. mine is the lone exception. Tom & Kim keep their bikes immaculate. IF they get a scratch, they immediately order new plastic or whatever part is needed to keep it in showroom condition. I've tried to keep up.. peer pressure & all.. but have given up.. these guys are good.

I'm going to try to go on the death valley ride Joel (from advrider) is planning, but many economic factors may creep in.. i'm also planning the usual grand canyon ride from sedona in early summer, so it will be a priority & i may have to cancel DV. We'll probably do another 4 dayer to GC.. lots of new riding with fantastic views coming up in that one. I'll post up dates sometime soon.. we seldom have more than 4 riders so it's a lot of fun.

One very nice thing about having anal fellow riders is their bikes are not only clean, but mechanically perfect, too. We seldom have bike troubles on the trails. Now if we could only find a way to maintain the riders better...

scotty

rydnseek wrote:

I think it was the youtube links that weren't working.. i tried embedding them with html, but evidently, this forum doesn't like it. It takes the html for the pics, just not the video embedding.. oh well.

On my blog i have the videos embedded, so you can watch them without having to navigate away from the page. Advrider also does this, but thumpertalk does not.. a forum specific option, it seems.

So the vids are here, now, but are just links.

scotty

The embedded videos worked fine yesterday on my computer. Now all I see is links. I think that it was on my home computer with Firefox.

rydnseek wrote:

We'll probably do another 4 dayer to GC.. lots of new riding with fantastic views coming up in that one.

I'm "in".......could also take you guys over to the Navajo Viewpoints between Cammeron and Lee's Ferry if you're up for it.....

There's a button above the text edit area that looks like a little piece of film, you can use it to embed video (don't need the HTML). If you preview it after posting the YouTube URL, it will convert the tag to "flash"--you can change the size before posting it.

How's your buddy doing?

malibu_dan wrote:

There's a button above the text edit area that looks like a little piece of film, you can use it to embed video (don't need the HTML). If you preview it after posting the YouTube URL, it will convert the tag to "flash"--you can change the size before posting it.

How's your buddy doing?

Thanks for the tip, Dan. I'll try that with my next report.

Kim is like new..ok, he's old, but he's as good as he gets. The amnesia was short term like the docs said.. no further problems. He is cleared to ride, work, or whatever. We might ride over to bullhead city next week.. we can keep an eye on him.

scotty