Vacationing with a disability

I wasn't sure how to title this entry.  "Hawaii AGAIN!!" seemed a little crass.  "Limping through  paradise" sounded like a cliche.  I didn't want to overly emphasize disability but, as we discovered, there is a significant difference in the things you can undertake and the time that you spend on various activities when you're living with a disability.  I'm going to try during this series of posts to explain some of the things we discovered related to the disability and other discoveries not related to the disability.

At the end of our first day of vacation we were discouraged because we hadn't done any sightseeing or even resting and relaxing.  No matter how hard we tried, we just didn't have enough oomph to do much on our first day of vacation EXCEPT

• wake up at some ungodly hour after a night of fitful sleep wondering if we had packed everything we needed
• manage to get all the luggage (including my walker) from the car to the check-in  counter
• negotiate the security process in a wheelchair (me) and with a walker as a luggage cart (Carolyn)
• similarly deal with obstacles at LAX and Lihue airports
• pick up a minivan and scooter previously arranged for (see photo above)
• check in at our time-share
• purchase a small supply of food
• keep going until 20 hours after we got up that morning

And we call this a vacation!   It was doubly hard on Carolyn because I couldn't carry or drag any of the luggage and somehow managed to forget/lose the information on the scooter so we had  to ask the hotel concierge to track down our reservation.

On the positive side, after a good, restful night of sleep we hope to enjoy the hotel including some of the pools and fountains our rooms look out  onto.

As you can tell, the grounds are just fantastic.

Because I was often less than useless, Carolyn often made 3 trips to my 1.  I would "watch" the luggage while she would lug the luggage.  She would register our rooms, shop for groceries, and order lunch while I sat in the car.  Maybe I can do more tomorrow.