Time to Leave Elkhart

Elkhart, IN     High:  63    Low:  48

All good things must come to an end...Eldo has indulged Sparky to no end, uh, wait, make that to the tune of about five pounds this month...Sparky has been able to imbibe and eat at her most of her faves-Hanayori of Japan on Grape Road in Mishawaka......Hanayori is a Japanese style restaurant where they cook your food to order at the table, crack corny jokes and play with fire. :-)  Here they build an onion volcano, set it on fire and sprinkle salt on it to make it sparkle.

This is Sparky's favorite restaurant in South Bend for celebrating special occasions for over 30 years! Many birthdays have been spent here....

We've also visited Heinnie's Back Barn with Eldy's friends, Chubby Trout, both in Elkhart, Carrabas in Mishawaka....Eldo has gotten to eat Columbo's Pizza, his absolute all time favorite pizza place anywhere....We've visited with our family, seen our good friends, got all our doctor, dentist and eye appointments out of the way with great reports, and we're good for another year. We biked the Pumpkinvine Trail three times and tried to get our exercise despite the weather which was unusually cool and wet for this time of year. The leaves are really flying off the trees now....

On our last visit to the Pumpkinvine today, Sparky took some family photos of Kristi, her husband Ted, and their son Connor. Sparky's favorite one is of Ted and Connor....

Connor had fun in the park where we took the photos..Oh, to be that young and limber and able to bend over and straighten back up without something popping and crackling!

Eldo has had hitch itch for the past week and a half...Sparky not so much, she's been enjoying the cool fall weather, soaking up the colors of the leaves, and enjoying the really cool fall temperatures. But the leaves are past their peak color here, and the high winds lately have blown many of the trees bare.

She's not ready to head back into temps in the eighties, but---we've been here a month....Time to move on...and just when the weather is heading into the seventies in Elkhart this week! We have reservations for a month for November in Gulf Shores, Alabama. We're going to take our time getting down there and it looks like we'll be in the Mammoth Cave area in Kentucky for a week for starters? That's a question mark because you just don't know where Eldo is going to go! Sparky loves new scenery and exploration. We visited Mammoth Cave last year but it was a short visit. Sparky is ready to go back and check out the area some more.

It's hard to say goodbye to family and friends, but our immediate families are coming to Florida for Christmas, so we'll see them again soon!

There were a few things we missed seeing while we were here...Sparky is putting Defries Garden on the list for next year...A thirteen acre homestead with a 1830's Victorian style home surrounded by perennial gardens and a CALENDAR garden located on County Road 46 in New Paris, IN. The calendar garden is a giant circular garden and flowering calendar. The paths are a compass that leads to a pond in the middle. It has the equinoxes and solstices with native plantings and others that follow the seasons through the year. Sparky would love to see this next year so on the list it goes.....

We didn't visit the RV Hall of Fame in Elkhart, we did that last year, but it's an awesome tour of lots of vintage RV's and their history and shouldn't be missed! We didn't play frisbee golf this year at Oxbow County Park's 18 hole disc golf course, but it's on the list for next year. And there's so much more, if you count South Bend in on the list of things to do and see.....We love coming back to the area for all these things and for our friends and family....It was wonderful to be "home".....Even though "home is where you park it", we will always consider Elkhart/South Bend to be our hometown.....It's on the road we go!