Traveling While Disabled: The Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks Edition

Episode One: The Plan

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Episode One: The Plan

Here's the deal about taking a trip as a power chair user. For me, anyway. I start planning more than a year in advance. I compare myself, in a grandiose way, to NASA organizing a Mars voyage. First, Pam and I save up monthly for a "big" trip. Our last one was for my 65th birthday when we went to Alaska and kayaked to icebergs and camped overnight on an island. Each trip teaches lessons. A lesson from the camping trip was no more sleeping on the ground. That part of my life is over. So thirteen months in advance at the exact time (Mountain Time Zone not Mountain Standard Time Zone) reservations opened up for National Park lodges, I waited with the website pulled up, with my notes at my side, to snatch one of the few accessible rooms at the Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks.

Once I had the rooms secured, I moved on to transportation. From previous research I knew there were places that rented accessible mini vans in Las Vegas. The first place was horrified that I wanted to drive the van myself and refused, rudely, to install hand controls. Which is illegal, but not my current fight, so I moved on and the next place was great and so accommodating that I worried they were blowing smoke. But I made the reservations and have kept checking in and each time they seemed to remember everything they said before. That's always a good sign.

Next in the puzzle are flights. Nonstop is best what with only wanting to give the airline minimal chances to break the wheelchair. One time we gave up nonstop to be able to fly directly out of the airport only five miles from our front door. What a luxury. But on the way back, they dropped my wheelchair out of the cargo hold and broke an axle because they didn't have enough staff or the right equipment to unload it safely. And yes, I had asked them ahead of time if they had a lift for unloading wheelchairs and they had lied to me. So now we have returned to driving the three hours in advance to the Orlando airport.

I found a Southwest flight that had one stop there and a direct return. And, I found out, you didn't have to get out of the plane at the stop which meant the wheelchair doesn't have to be unloaded and loaded again! It does extend the flight time, but I, along with many other wheelchair users, am an experienced dehydrator which gives me about seven hours of not having to pee. But I'm older now, so it might be less time. But I can wear a diaper just in case. Yes, I know, legally they are required to somehow get me to the onboard toilet, but in practical terms, they really don't know how or have the strength to manage safely and it's a big production and I'd rather skip it if I can.

I have a backup wheelchair. I bought it off Craig's List. It is always emotional to buy medical equipment this way. The equipment is available because someone has died. And the person selling it loved that person. When I bought my first lift van, the recently deceased owner's mother cried the whole time and could barely get any words out. Finally, she called her daughter to come over as support. The daughter whispered stories to me about drunken road trips she and her brother took in the van, and I could tell it made her happy to remember them.  

The Craig's List power chair's owner (Inheritor?) gave us directions through a maze of sand roads in a trailer park near Orlando. The man and his son were stiff with grief as I tried out the wheelchair which didn't have foot pedals so his wife must have been an amputee. But she must have loved this wheelchair because it was a dream chair, excitingly fast and responsive.

I figure it's my job to honor these previous users by taking their equipment on as many adventures as I can. And in both cases, the van and the wheelchair, they've passed something on to me. The van guy had a purple plastic key chain that I used for many years until it broke. And deep in the side pocket of the wheelchair was a tiny, lone, broken earring. I left it there.

This is the wheelchair I'll take on our upcoming trip. It's not as comfortable to sit in for any length of time and doesn't tilt or recline like my insurance provided one, but it's great out on trails. All that power and torque and a relatively light weight means it can scramble over roots and rocky trails. I'm not sure how it does with elevations, but we'll find out. I finally have it in the repair shop for a thorough once over before we leave. I had to wait since it's been my only wheelchair since my everyday wheelchair was smashed up on our last flight. That was over four months ago and it's just been fixed. The tune-up costs have to be figured into the trip budget. Insurance will not pay for the purchase, maintenance, or repair of backup wheelchairs. (UPDATE: The chair was long overdue for new batteries. $650.)

After the basics of places to sleep, flights, and transport are set in place, I fill in the itinerary. Pam wants to gamble a little, so I plan for a night in Las Vegas coming and going. That's not a problem. Las Vegas is really accessible from hotel rooms to actual, for real, on call accessible taxis that we will take to the van place where I have made friends, best I can, with the rental coordinator there. She knows I'm coming. I call her often. Yes, I'm still worried. As with Mars voyages there are redundancies built in all through this trip—except for the ramp van.

Oh, and I've planned a kayak trip on the Colorado River because, for me, if there's water, I should be floating on it. It's not what you think, all whitewater and desperate bobbing around massive rocks. This is at Lee's Ferry, halfway on the drive between the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park. In this tiny place there's a lodge that says it has an accessible room. And an outfitter will take us upstream in a motorboat and drop us off in some kayaks. Then we paddle downstream through the smooth headwaters of the Colorado and wind through cliffs with petroglyphs and long lines of color that demark ancient geologic transformations. Or so the website indicates. It'll be cold. Just the cold is an adventure.

Anyway, that's the plan. We leave in a month. It's time to set up the staging area for packing.

P.S. - If anyone wants specific details for your own planning of a trip, leave a comment. Although it might be better to wait until we get back and know more about what worked, what didn't, and if anyone is just flat out lying to me.

P.P.S. - Tomorrow, I post the next chapter of The Sacrifice Zone. As usual I'll open up the first couple of paragraphs so anyone can read it. You know, as a teaser to attract paid subscribers.