Sacramento CA - Holed up with Sciatica

One of many fabulous Italian restaurants in San Francisco -
Kuleto's on Union Square

After a celebration of the holidays in San Francisco with family and friends, it was time to leave all the decadence behind and head to Sacramento for New Years Eve.  On our last night together, after months of globe trotting together, Zak and I took the time to sample some of the fine foods prepared at one of San Francisco's finest Italian eateries.  Kuleto's has been a favorite of mine since grad school days.

Kuleto's Chefs whip up some delicacies for us.
This is the best part of the place - you get to watch them cook!

Next day, Zak and I had a good time exploring the city and wandering around Union Square together.  We had great meals together and did a little shopping, saw Tron in 3D, and spent our last night together at the Hilton.  It was a big adventure with travels all over the globe for the two of us since October, and now Zak will stay in San Francisco to find his opportunities and I will continue with my Grand Adventure!  Good luck my awesome son!

Zak and horses at Great Sand Dunes

It's the middle of the night again.  Seems these days I don't need much sleep, but the real reason is I'm having so much fun with my good friend Patty that we have a hard time saying goodnight.  Have you ever had a friend that you can completely feel at ease with?  Someone who accepts you and loves you, just the way you are?  It's a wonderful feeling, full of laughter and spontaneous bouts of hilarious fun.

Patty Kuhry and Trish Wild having fun.

Even though I'm having the greatest time ever, I suffer with terrible sciatica.  This injury is from a fall last April when Maggie bucked me off for the first time in our 12 years together.  I just wasn't expecting it and flew off my jumping saddle, landing hard on my left hip.  I'm am still trying to get the SI joint back in place so it doesn't compress the sciatic nerve, but it is a daily problem.  I have finally decided to go to whatever means needed to heal this thing or accept it as a chronic pain problem, which I refuse to have.  I am going to stop assuming this will heal on it's own and hereby declared that I will learn whatever it is I need to learn to fix this problem once and for all.

My plan is to stay at Patty's another week or until my hip has been pain free for 3 days.

We also start a juice fast on Saturday, yoga postures 30 min twice a day, chiropractic adjustments as needed, and possibly some more acupuncture and massage.  I am drinking a lot of fresh squeezed ginger and it's delicious!  I have also added a multivitamin, an aspirin, and milk thistle to my diet and will be (sorry everyone but trying to keep things honest here) taking enemas as prescribed by the Dr. who wrote the juice fast book.

Apples, cukes, carrots, and cranberries ready for juicing!

According to the good Dr., I will lose a pound a day on this juice fast, and glow like a youngster in her early 30's.  Awesome.  Not to mention the other hundred metabolic benefits.

So I'm sharing this with you to let you know I still plan to ride, I'm just trying to get through this phase of rest and rejeuvenation before I start sleeping on the ground again.  It's pretty cushy at Patty's compared to a lot of the campsites and toilets I've used.  I love the contrast, so I'm taking full advantage of her wonderful hostessing and believe her when she says "Stay longer!  We're good for each other!"  She is so right, as can be seen in this photo:

Patty serving up a delicious fresh squeezed health beverage.

I love my girlfriends, and if you don't have a passle of them?  Go get you a bunch!

Trish and Gwen the night before I left Colorado.  Dec, 2010

Nurses Jess and Whitney

awesome crew of sweet angels

Mary kept the horses a couple of extra days for me so I pick them up from her place and relocate them somewhere else tomorrow.  I have a couple of very generous and welcoming offers from people to keep the horses on private property.  I made these contacts on the Equestrian website I belong to.  Horse people are a special breed.  It's the old west thing maybe.  Or maybe it's that our equine friends make us that way.  I'm only just beginning on this ride, and already I feel warmly welcome.  I have offers of places to stay in Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Iowa, Florida, Alabama, and Wyoming already.  And Texas.  Oh yes, and North Dakota of course, and Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

But if I'm going to be able to make it all the way, I will often be throwing myself "on the kindness of strangers".  I know that if I was on the other end of this, I would be happy to offer the same.  I believe our lives will all be enriched by the experiences we will share.  And of course Maggie, Magic, and Midnight are spreading their good will and beauty everywhere we go.

I am so thankful.

More soon. Looks like we'll be having a sunshine ride soon!

Joshua Tree National Park, California