The Advantages of Being Handicapped

Please...I'm not making fun of the disabled or disabilities in any way with this post. I have, however, just discovered that there can be some "perks" to being labelled as such!

Before I flew to California to start our long trek back east, my daughter had suggested to me that it might not be a bad idea to see if I qualified for a handicapped placard. Her reasoning was that the walks in national parks from parking lots to venues can be long. Whaaaaat?? I'm not disabled! How am I going to qualify for a placard? Well...I'm not disabled...but I have had a heart attack, and my knees don't work all that well anymore. My legs sometimes feel like they're made of lead, and I huff and puff just to get around. I knew there would be trails on the trip that I wouldn't be able to do, etc....but disabled? Nahhhhh! Still, I called my cardiologist's office to inquire if he would consider approving me for a temporary handicapped parking permit. To my utter surprise, he not only would, but considered me "permanently" disabled. (Ouch! I wasn't quite sure how to take that!) Within an hour of having the paperwork signed, I had the placard in hand to pack for the trip.

The obvious advantage of having the placard is that it permitted us to park closer to a venue than we would otherwise have been allowed. But there was another, bigger advantage that I didn't know about. Early in the trip, we stopped at a park center at Mono Lake and applied for (and got) a "Senior Access" pass that is good for free admittance to any national park or facility--for life--for which the admission fee is usually $25 a pop! It saved us $80! (It would have been more except that one can buy a yearly pass for national parks for $80. Otherwise, it would have saved us over $200.)

The pass also came in handy at the Grand Canyon. We were granted permission to travel on roads that only the tour buses have access to... That gave us the ability to see parts of the canyon without having to wait for the buses to pick up and deliver us. That was nice.

Most likely, I won't use the Senior Access Pass for a long time, if ever, again...but it sure made it easier for an old lady to see some of the wonderful sights of our nation's west. The pass was free. All that was required was that I show the paperwork for the placard (who it was registered to, etc., and my photo ID). The park service people are quite nice about it all, and it worked for us!

Road-ee-oo. Yee-haw!

On July 4th, America's Independence Day, we were leaving Yellowstone and on the road for Cody, Wyoming. That's Cowboy Country, dontcha know. If you don't wear a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and drive a pick-em-up truck, you ain't nobody--except these people are for real, not wannabes (although they certainly cater to the tourist crowd). We arrived at our motel and even had time for the children to have a swim in the pool before we headed for the Cody Stampede (rodeo), which Megan had booked ahead of time.

The rodeo began at 5:00 and was to last three hours. I errantly thought there were going to be fireworks on the Stampede grounds, so I carried my purse and three sweatshirts. (We didn't need them...so I sat holding them throughout the entire rodeo. Big mistake.) Robin had brought her stuffed bear from Yellowstone and a couple of other trinkets...one of which fell through the bleacher seats to the top of a roof on a building below. (That required a trip under the bleachers and some begging to see if anyone was willing to help an 8-year-old greenhorn get her $2 toy.) Another thing: we were in the 23rd row up on bleachers. It wasn't in the nosebleed section, but pert neart. (That's cowboy talk for "pretty near it" for you dandy dudes.) I HATE walking up those when you can see the ground underneath...

We were packed in like sardines, but the show was good. Without much fanfare between events, there was bareback bronc riding, saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, calf roping, barrel racing, and a couple of rounds of bull riding. (What's a "bronc" anyway? I mean, I know it's short for "bronco" and means a bucking horse...but why don't they just say that??) Many stayed on for the full eight seconds, but many didn't. Not sure how the scores were tallied. (I'll have to Google that.)

The true heroes of the rodeo were not the contestants, in my opinion, but the two "pick-up" guys and their horses. They were amazing! They stayed in the ring with the competitors. At the 8-second buzzer, they rode next to the bucking animal close enough for the contestant to grab on and dismount. They delivered the contestant safely to the ground, then went after the bucking animal and, still racing around, reached over and unhooked the bucking strap, grabbed the reins, and slowed the animal down enough to get it back in the pen. I was fascinated watching the teamwork between man and horse. There was some pretty skillful riding going on--some of it hands-free and at gallop! I wonder how they train those horses to be so fearless next to racing/bucking animals??! It was pretty obvious to me that these guys had been riding and working the rodeo for a long time. And, by the way, they changed horses twice during the show, so there were many more than just two horses that were so well trained! (How does one get a horse to gallop? The best I was ever able to do on a very reluctant steed was a jarring canter that rattled my teeth.)

There were also rodeo clowns, of course. They provide some comic relief, but are actually there to distract bucking bulls after the contestant is on the ground (to hope to prevent injury while he makes his escape). There was one injury--a cowboy whose head made contact with a bull's horn on a buck (Denis has it on camera). They took him off on a backboard, but I guess he did wake up before they had him off the field. Whew! Thankfully, the clowns weren't needed too much...

Then, the show was over. Huh? No fireworks?? Guess the fireworks would be somewhere in town, so we went off in search. Got a good spot to see them--on a mountain side behind a church, overlooking a valley where they were to be shot off. We got there in plenty of time so the kids could play, etc. As it neared dark, we watched a storm approach over the far mountains. The wind picked up. It became a race to see which would happen first--the storm or the fireworks. The fireworks won...but the wind got bad enough that I sat in the car while my family watched outside...until the rain came just before the finale of rockets "bursting in air". It was different!

And...by the way....the movies always talk about storms coming up quickly over the mountains. While that may be true in some places, we had occasion to watch two approaching storms over our trip. One took hours and never did materialize where we were, although we could SEE it seemingly move straight for us. The other was this Fourth of July one. It took hours to arrive from when we first saw it over the far mountains. Distance is relative!

We yelled "Happy Birthday, America!" from the safety of the minivan....then drove back to our motel for the night. We had a truly unique Fourth of July experience. Yee-haw!

Monument Valley

I am taking this trip somewhat out of sequence, but I can do that...

On June 28th, we headed east. We spent two nights in a row in the same place at the Lake Powell Resort in Page, Arizona. It's a good thing we did. Ryan got sick the day before. Spent the entire day throwing up...so we just did what we could to keep things normal. But this day, he woke up feeling fine and hungry, so we started out.

About 40 miles out of town, Denis had a moment of panic. He couldn't find his iPhone. Megan did a U-turn on the highway, thinking to go back to where we had last been, but I convinced her that we needed to stop and just look in the vehicle. We did. In a few short minutes, the phone was located and we could breathe a sigh of relief. Whew!

Our destination for the day was Cortez, Colorado, by way of Monument Valley. We were in dusty/dry conditions...on a Navajo reservation, where there were trailer homes and lots of abandoned vehicles in little patches of ground that were devoid of vegetation and shade. The only significance anywhere was the topography--stark and beautiful landscape.

Monument Valley is something you see in cartoon backgrounds (like Cars 2) and other desert scenes in movies. There is nothing--and then there is a large monument of stone sticking up out of nowhere. More than one. When you enter the park (reservation) you are told that there is an 11-mile road that you can take around the monuments, but it will take 1 1/2 hours because the road is rough. I think Meg wanted to go on the road tour, but I didn't think it was a good idea. We could see the formations quite well from the Navajo Center/Gift Shop.

There was wind. (There is always wind.) We sat on an overlook at the Center and looked at the valley. Soft Indian flute music was piped from the guest center. Otherwise, there was no sound. If ever there was a place to contemplate the meaning of life, this is it. I felt so very minuscule, surrounded by huge rock formations that came about over eons of Nature at work. I could have sat there for hours! If there is a soul on earth who doesn't believe in the existence of God, he/she needs to go to Monument Valley. I was transfixed.

As with almost every experience, there is a human side. Megan went to the restroom. As she was exiting the stall, there were five European men standing there! She freaked. She told them it was NOT okay for them to be there...etc. Not sure how much they understood, but she wasn't a happy camper! Then, as we were leaving the place, Robin became separated from us, so there was a mini-search launched. Thankfully, the lost was found fairly quickly and we moved on to our destination for the day: Cortez, Colorado.

Monument Valley was my most spiritual experience of the trip. It was as if I were part of an ancient experience. No wonder the Navajo treasure it so much!

Meltdown

In all of our travels over our "vacation/move" trip, there was only one emotional meltdown--and it turned out to be one of the adults!

On June 23rd, we were up at 3:30 AM to beat the crowd to Yosemite National Park, at Megan's suggestion. We ate breakfast in our room, since it was too early for the continental breakfast. (Also ate lunch in the car that day.) It was a full day. We toured Yosemite and Mono Lake (with tufa), toured Bodie, California, which is the largest intact ghost town anywhere. We were on the road for many hours that day, seeing wondrous sights and hoping it was just the beginning of a fun trip. By the time we reached our cabin for the night, the children were just about done in, as were we all. It was probably 10 or 10:30 before we found the place where we were to spend the night.

We were a party of five. Many motels won't let 5 in a room. Some will provide a rollaway bed; some won't. For those that won't, we had a pad and sleeping bag and pillow for the 5th member of our party--we thought Ryan, since he is a male and would (we thought) be the most adventurous. As it happens, Ryan is also the youngest and the one who is the most tuned in to what is fair and what isn't. He had spent the night before on a rollaway bed and decided that he wasn't going to sleep on the floor on the pad that night. He wanted a bed. He squawked about it.

Denis took offense. Being from Russia and having endured many situations in which he would have loved to have had a bed as nice as a rollaway--and maybe even a pad and sleeping bag on the floor--Den didn't like Ryan's attitude. Megan felt trapped by the fact that her youngest wasn't cooperating when she had worked so hard to plan for everything. (And therein lies the rub: Meg spent weeks planning the trip, booking the rooms, researching for bed bugs, figuring out the budget, working at her job, packing her apartment...as did Denis. Meg and Den were emotionally exhausted and probably not well equipped to deal with a 7-year-old. In Ryan's defense, he was also exhausted from our long/late flight to California and our early departure that day, with schedules disrupted and a 7-year-old mentality.) Megan flipped out. She decided that SHE would sleep in the van, since that would leave a place on a bed in the cabin, but it was 85 degrees outside and not conducive to sleep. She didn't have a nice thing to say to anyone. She was crying and Ryan was crying and I was trying to indicate that everyone just needed to get some sleep because everything would seem better in the morning. Denis was in the car trying to console Megan. I was in the cabin trying to figure things out and at the car trying to coax Megan in. Ryan was totally asleep before any of this was resolved, as I knew he would be. Finally, I looked at Robin and said, "Robin, will YOU sleep on the pad?" Without a blink, she said she would...and she did! This was a pattern that continued the whole rest of the trip. Robin slept on rollaways and on the floor pad. Ryan--even though he wanted to--was no longer given the option. He was stuck sleeping with Grandma, while Robin had her own space. I'm not sure she always wanted it, but she never complained and was willing to keep the peace by being the agreeable one. You go, Robin!

After Meg finally came back in the cabin and settled down, everyone fell instantly asleep, but Denis decided that he needed fresh air. (I don't blame him!) Unfortunately, he forgot to take the cabin key, and the door locked behind him. Here we were in a semi-desert area of Independence, California. Denis was fine outside until he began to think about snakes and scorpions and "ghoulies and ghosties and three-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night". He was knocking on the door, trying to be discrete, while the rest of us snoozed inside. Guess that went on for about 30 minutes before Meg heard it at the same time I did. Huh? When Meg let him in, he disrobed and gratefully slid into bed. What a long day!

On the entire rest of the trip, there were no more emotional meltdowns. We learned to gauge our feelings and eat/stretch/move on before anyone got too low on patience. I don't know of too many people who can endure an almost-three-week trip by vehicle, with kids, who can do that!

Death Valley

I might as well start the journal of our vacation trip with one of the most dramatic locations on the planet: Death Valley. The longest, hottest summer I ever spent was our day in that place! I had seen the desert before as a young child, but it didn't have the impact on me then as it does now with an adult perspective. What a place!

We knew we had entered the Mojave Desert when the Joshua trees showed up and the land became barren of anything other than the most hardy of plants. Joshua trees aren't trees at all. They are little succulent plants that rise up a couple of feet and dot the landscape in distant places. We could also tell as we watched the outside temperature sensor on Megan's vehicle begin to rise...and rise...and rise. We had experienced 100 degrees...and 101 and 102...west of the desert. In Death Valley, however, we were incredulous as we watched the gauge rise to 120 degrees. (I would say it was 120 "in the shade", but in DV, there IS no shade!) We all also watched the engine temperature gauge inside the car. On several occasions, the needle got dangerously close to the red, at which point, Meg turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows until the engine could cool enough to keep us from worrying too much. On the roads, there would be signs that said, "Next services, 63 miles." What that meant was that it would be 63 miles to any sign of civilization...gas, water, buildings...and not many of those. Megan and Denis were conscientious about keeping the gas tank full, so--barring any mechanical breakdown--we were not at risk of doing something stupid like being stuck on a roadside with nothing (and I do mean NOTHING) in site for miles and miles. Still, the potential was there. We had lots of water in the vehicle, and everyone had bucket hats to protect from the sun...but there was no respite from the heat. No place we stopped during the entire day had air conditioning that could keep up with the relentless outdoor temperatures, including the minivan.

Let me talk about the heat for a second. First of all, I'm not exaggerating about the temperature at all. We recorded 120 on two devices made to gauge the temp. Also, I reiterate that there was no shade anywhere. We couldn't park in it or stand in it because there wasn't any. None. There was wind and lots of it, but it wasn't cooling. It was hot wind. I don't remember perspiring at all. I believe that the wind took the moisture out of our skin before it even had a chance to pop to the surface! Ryan and Denis poured some water on the ground and watched as the puddle was completely evaporated in less than a minute. None of us had ever experienced heat like this before. It was horrible in an awesome way. How could we have come out of the Sierra where it was naturally air conditioned with snow still on the ground and beautiful waterfalls everywhere due to snow melt--where one of the mountain passes had only been opened just a few days before due to snow--to this desolate place, in only a few hours of travel? All I could think of was what a tragic surprise it must have been to early pioneers who happened into this valley not knowing what they were about to endure. There was no water and no vegetation that could be considered fodder for pack animals. No wildlife beyond the most adaptable of organisms can survive in Death Valley. What an amazing place Death Valley is!

We stopped at an overlook fairly early in the day, called Padre Crowley Point where a canyon overlooks a big valley. Denis took pictures. The children looked around. Meg and I had our backs to the canyon, when I became aware that I was hearing an airplane. It seemed so out of place! Meg and I turned to locate the source of the sound, when up out of the canyon roared a military fighter jet! We never saw it enter the canyon. Never heard it until it was right there! It gave us goosebumps! We watched as it went up and circled around and moved off. Obviously, it was on some sort of training flight...and I thought, "How convenient that it is practicing over the desert! If it crashes, it will hit NOTHING." We really wanted the jet to come back and thrill us again, but it didn't.

Just before leaving the overlook, we were all at the railing that kept us from falling into the canyon--maybe 75 feet below. Robin was to my left...then me, then Megan, Denis, and Ryan...all looking at the landscape before getting ready to head out. Then, suddenly, we became aware that Robin was in FRONT of us. ROBIN WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RAIL, ON MERE INCHES OF GROUND BEFORE IT DROPPED OFF INTO THE CANYON!!!!! ACK!! The dear child had seen something on the other side of the rail that she wanted to pick up and had just taken it upon herself to fetch it, totally unaware of the potential danger she was in. We quickly got her back to the safe side of the railing, but it was a brief moment of panic for the adults. Whew! I had to chuckle at Denis. His comment was, "This is something Megan worried and worried about before the trip, and I assured her that it wouldn't occur...but then, the FIRST CRACK IN THE GROUND we come to, this happens..." 'Tis one of the first lessons of parenthood, dear son-in-law: things can happen in the blink of an eye because kids are slick!

In less than a day, we had seen Mt. Whitney (the highest peak in the lower 48 states) and the Badwater area of DV (the lowest point in the lower 48). We left the vehicle only a few times--at Stovepipe Wells, the Ranger Station, Badwater...and maybe one or two others--but by mid-afternoon, we were done with the wonder of the desert in search of relief from the heat. Furnace Creek is a resort in the desert. They have a pool--and they allow non-guests to pay to use it. We had our bathing suits handy in the car, but no towels. (Towels were unimportant since we were quite certain that the hot wind would have us dried off before we even needed to worry about it.) The water was warm, and the deep end of the pool was in the shade of a wall, so that's where we stayed. All five of us. It was the only time on the entire trip that all of us were in a pool at the same time...and the only time that it seemed so necessary!

When we got out of the pool, I went to the women's shower room to get dressed. There were men in there! They were showering with their families, and the wind outside was causing the shower curtains to billow out. What to do? This is something that we discovered about the Great American West. It was full of tourists from other countries...and apparently the European tradition is different from ours. I'm not sure WHY these men decided to be in the women's room, but it was a bit unsettling to realize that there was no place for me to dress unless I went into one of the toilet stalls--which I did. Had to drop my clothing onto the floor of a toilet stall (which I hate to do) just to get dressed in privacy. As it happens, this was not the last time we would experience the European-men-in-the-women's-restroom problem...

Dinner was in a cafe' on the Furnace Creek grounds. We got hydrated and refreshed before heading out to find our lodging for the night at Death Valley Junction. The motel that night was at the Amargosa Opera House--probably built in the 1920s during the old 20-mule-team borax days. We arrived at about 9:3o PM, but the office was closed up. What to do?? To our surprise, there was an envelope on the office door with "Shchepetov" written on it. Our room key! (I thanked the innkeeper the next morning for that!) The room was big and old. No TV. No phone. Peeling paint. An aging window air conditioner that could barely cool the room. But it was an historic place and neat in its own sort of way. The fan that we brought saved us from a sleepless night in the heat, and we were off to our next adventure the next day.

Death Valley wasn't the most beautiful place that we saw nor the most exciting, but I will never forget it because of the shere starkness of the conditions. People actually choose to live there! Amazing!

Where to Begin??

I have had so many adventures since I last posted on here! Rather than post a day-by-day description of our days on the road across this vast land of ours, I will write vignettes of things of most interest (to most). If you don't like that kind of stuff, I invite you not to read it!

Let's start with the particulars. I picked up my grandchildren in Gary, IN, in the late afternoon of June 19th. In the afternoon of June 21st, the Heffelman grandparents took us to the airport for our flight to San Jose, CA.

We arrived perhaps an hour-and-a half late because connecting flights in Las Vegas were delayed due to bad weather back in Chicago and other points east...but Denis and Megan were there to greet us. We slept in a motel in Sunnyvale that night since M and D's apartment was torn apart in the packing process.

The next morning, we went to the apartment to meet the movers. The children and I did what we could to stay busy and out of the way....fed the ducks and worked on iPods, etc. I have to say...and you will hear this several times as I weave our tale...that my grandchildren are champion travelers. They are patient beyond their years! As we left the apartment that day and headed east, we said good-bye to California and hello to the rest of the country before us.

We spent almost three weeks on the road, all five of us in a minivan, in close quarters in and out of the car, in all manner of heat and inconvenience. There were adventures. What you will read, if you stick with this, is the journal of what we encountered along the way. Even though we are "home", the saga isn't over.

As of today, Megan and Denis are homeless no more. They have rented a townhome in Grayslake, IL. That's another story. I'm just glad they have landed, even though it will be a couple of weeks before their belongings arrive.

I have set the scene for my tales. God bless you for reading this!