Picture me rollin’

A fun weekend with the in-laws visiting.  We did the Valentines dinner a night early, Friday night, at iorio, with Greta’s Parents, cousin, and her husband.  This was our first visit to iorio, and I’m sure it won’t be the last, seriously good food, and despite there being a little communication issue amongst us, resulting in nobody actually making a reservation, their hostess was able to shift things around and get our group of six seated without too much of a wait.  The food was amazing, and there are gluten free options for just about everything, leaving Greta with multiple choices, instead of only one or two dishes to choose from.

Keeping the party going, Greta’s parents, Greta, and I, caught brunch at Verde Cocina, a second visit, and new favorite for Greta and I.  Again, if you have celiac disease, or any gluten sensitivity, this place is completely gluten free.  Also, their food over two visits, has been amazing.  So far we’ve only been there for brunch, next up we need to check out their dinner menu.

After brunch yesterday, we drove to Silver Falls State Park to take advantage of this amazing weather we’re having in February.  I hadn’t been back to this park since my tween years, so it was fun to return and fill in the memory gaps.  We visited the lower falls section of the park, and while the majority of the area is very wheelchair accessible, the lower falls trail has a somewhat questionable accessible listing, at least with an ordinary wheelchair.  Not to be stopped, we gave it a whirl, the descent was a bit sketchy in parts, trying to keep my weight back with bike gloved hands in constant pressure on the rims to keep the chair and I at a controllable speed, while avoiding the occasional rock and spring water gully.  Trails like this can be fun, but it’s also a bit of a double edged sword, knowing that we’d have to get the chair and myself on it, back up that trail.  Fortunately Greta and my Father-in-law are always eager to help out with this, switching back and forth until out of breath.

Let me talk briefly about my wheelchair (I have on my agenda to do a full review write-up of this, hopefully later this week), it doesn’t fit right.  I still believe that TiLite is one of the better/best wheelchair companies out there, but my local insurance mandated provider, numotion did a horrible job of sizing the chair for me from the start.  This being my first chair, I didn’t know any better and went along with their recommendations, only to learn through use, that it was all wrong.  Over the last year, I’ve had an extremely frustrating time getting them to try and fix several issues resultant of this, and I’m about ready to try and push my insurance again, to allow me to go through another local provider.  TiLite, if you make it to this post, do you have any kind of wheelchair trade-in program so I can get a redo to make sure things are done right from the start?  One of my symptoms is that my feet want to turn inwards and push off from the toes.  When on the wheel chair, especially in a situation such as going down a hill, those legs get all tensed up, trying to push down on the foot plate to help keep myself pushed back in the wheelchair and be firmly in place, so much so that I end up completely on the balls of my feet, then the outsides, and expending a serious amount of energy and concentration trying to just keep my feet on the foot plate.  I keep thinking that I need to either find some sort of foot strap, or invent something myself, to keep my feet completely flat and in place, for any rolling past casual necessity.

In the end, I suppose I need more than one wheelchair, to have options for different terrain.  I am still active, and want to be even more active, and I need the right adaptive equipment to keep up with that.  For now, it would be nice to at least one wheelchair that felt like it was properly sized for me, just for everyday use.

The falls are truly beautiful, worth the effort, and although muddy, we made it back out.  I tried tracking with the Strava app on my phone, which sort of worked, however, Strava, you really need to add “Wheelchair” to your list of activity categories, it’s absolutely an exercise to be tracked!