Where's Eldo????

He's still in Indiana, mootchdocking at his son's house, with Sparky, of course.  What the heck have we been doing for the past month? Holy cow, Sparky didn't realize that much time had gone by since she last posted! OK...here we go, for a friend who asked if they should be concerned about us, nah, we're ok...Well sort of....We took this month to schedule doctor visits, get vaccinated with all kinds of things...flu, pneumonia, and THE booster shot. Sparky made the mistake of getting both the flu shot AND the pneumonia shot in the same arm. Why? Because the nurse asked her, do you want one sore arm or two? Sparky said two. Oy Vey! She had a terrible reaction and ended up trying to find an open Urgent Care medical center at 9:00 at night. Which we weren't able to, so we went back home and waited till the next day to see if 1) the big bad lump, 2) the terrible itching and 3) the elephant like swelling went down and they did. Whew!

Sparky has been having trouble with severe sciatic. It's so bad she has trouble walking after sitting for awhile. Then things straighten out a little better, but then it's waking her up at night and the pain goes down past the knee into the shin bone. Hmmmm, she remembers  writing about this maybe in the last year or so. Well, after chiropractic down in Florida, it WAS better for awhile, and now it's back with a vengeance. So-o-o-o.. Sparky has been going to therapy twice a week for a couple of weeks, but we have to leave at the end of this week, so she will continue to look for help in Texas and Arizona. She had X-rays done and she has anterolisthesis...It's where a vertebrae (L4 and L5) have a vertebrae in between that has slid forward a bit. It's not a slipped disk, but it sure sounds like it! They grade them from 1-4, (3-4 is probably back surgery) but so far Sparky is off the radar with no grade yet from the orthopedic doctor. She's got LOTS of stretches and core exercises to do, and she has endured ASTEM therapy which is grueling. They take an acrylic block shaped like a meat cleaver and rake your skin with it, HARD, back and forth or in one direction. It's supposed to release toxins and adhesions, and get fluids moving through the system to reduce the inflammation in the area. It hurts like hell when they do it, but afterwards, the blood rushes through the formerly "closed off" areas and it feels so much better...for a couple of days. The therapist can "see" the trouble spots because they turn bright red immediately. 

We've got all the tools-- a foam roller, a tennis ball, the STICK (a unique roller stick like a skinny skinny rolling pin, (from Amazon, photo at the left) a TENS unit, a Bob and Brad massage gun (THE  most famous physical therapists on the Internet--YouTube) and Lidocaine pain patches. Sparky is hoping for a turnaround soon. She has stopped the big long walks and the long bike rides for now, to let her body heal a bit. So what are we doing in the meantime?

EATING! Elkhart has some amazing breweries with EXCELLENT food besides craft beers. One is The Brass Elk in Elkhart near the river and riverwalk. OMG....the smashburgers are AMAZING! And Sparky has a new favorite, fried cheese curds! (Which is NOT good because she just found out she has high cholesterol, says E.) SHHHHHH! Cheese curds look just like fried mozzarella sticks, but man, they are SO-O-O-O much better! Yum!

The decor is wonderfully modern and check out this horn sculpture piece which is made of many different types of musical instrument bells. If you remember, Eldy used to buff the horns for the music industry. He worked for Blessings Musical Instrument company for 43.5 years! He personally buffed the herald horns for the Los Angelos Olympics and buffed instruments for some famous jazz musicians.

Heinnie's Back Barn is another old time Elkhart favorite. The steaks and mushrooms are fantastic! It's a very old place, over 65 years and running. It's so old that Gale Sayers, the Chicago Bears running back used to go there every Friday night on his way to his second home in Wakarusa, IN. But hey---It's an ordinary restaurant with very good food. The atmosphere is...meh....But they have really really good steaks.

Sparky has been crafting while waiting on all these doctor, dentist (had to get another crown) and PT appointments. But wait--An aside...(Sparky's ADHD is kicking in, explains Eldo.) While in the dentist chair, the hygienist says to Sparky, "Boy, you certainly have a lot of different crowns in there!" Well, yeah. Sparky could be the poster child for the HISTORY OF DENTAL CROWNS.  "In the upper right quadrant, here you have a porcelain fused to metal crown from the 70's. In the back upper quadrant, gold alloy fused to porcelain from the 80's. The front teeth are porcelain fused to metal from the late 50's. (Sparky lost her permanent front teeth in 1956 on the ice skating rink). And in the lower left quadrant...." See? She really could be! She thinks the dentist said this latest one is made from zirconium. !!!

OK, back to crafting...ornaments...Elves....

A clove scented mini hand embroidered pillow, or bowl filler....

A table runner for Eldy's son and wife for letting us stay at their house, use their washing machine and bathtub so Sparky can soak every night....(RV's don't have bathtubs, ya know...)

We love being so close to some of our family, but the time to head for warmer climates is soon at hand. Its in the 40's and low 50's during the day, and the TWENTIES at night!!! 

Sparky will ride one last ride this week..here is a photo above, from a delightful trail spur off the Pumpkinvine Bike Trail that goes past Das Essenhaus, another fine restaurant with great home cooked food and the best turkey dinner ever!

Sparky spotted this on the last Pumpkinvine Trail ride. It was a chilly day! Wonder how they missed their little person losing a shoe!

We are so glad we got to see the leaves change before we left. The trees just changed color in about the last week! Fall is Sparky's favorite time of year!

We had a big frost last night...Eldo worries about maintaining the heat in the bays and water connections freezing, but he does a great job watching the furnace controls and making sure we are keeping temperatures where they should be. We unhooked the hose from Brian's house for the rest of the week because night temperatures will be in the 20's! So we will use our inboard water tank. Sparky loves seeing the frost on the grass.. (Geesh! I'll be lucky to get her out of Indiana! fusses E.)

Sparky hopes to get back out on her bike soon! So she can take goofy photos like this one:

Thanks for reading and following along with us! See you later....