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!