Accessibility: Things You Don't Notice Before You Need Them

Having a child with a disability opens your eyes to many things, one of which is how accessible the world is to them and others in similar situations. We're still at the point with Teddy where he's small enough that we don't always take advantage of things like accessible parking or other things that we probably should because they'd make our life easier.

Case in point: we got the the trailhead in Rocky Mountain and weren't going to use the accessible parking pass because there was other parking available. As we were preparing for our hike (up the side of the mountain to visit waterfalls), we overhead the ranger tell other folks that the trailhead was still a mile up the road. Umm, what? Carry Teddy 2 extra miles, especially when we just got into the mountain altitude? We asked if there was accessible parking still available, explained why we had the pass and proceeded to drive the mile to the trailhead. Thank goodness because otherwise we never would have reached the cascades.

This picture of the cascades made possible by accessible parking.

There's other instances where we didn't take advantage yet still appreciated the options available. At Great Sand Dunes, both a pediatric and adult wheelchair are available to borrow to go into the dunes since a regular wheelchair is useless on sand. We carried Teddy in a backpack, but this is still such a great option that we might need to use in the future. We also noticed a wheelchair available to borrow at Florrisant Fossil Beds to explore their trails, which again we didn't use since Teddy's Kruze is pretty sturdy.

There's Canyonlands, which I felt did a great job with accessible camp sites that are only available to individuals with a disability. Other places offer this as well, but it was prominent at Canyonlands.

We even found a backcountry accessible camping sight about 1/4-mile off the trail at Sprague Lake. That means we could take Teddy to camp in the backcountry without having to hike and carry in all the gear, which would make it impossible. We could push his chair and carry our stuff, plus it's close enough to the parking area that we could get help if needed for a medical emergency. That's incredible!

This was such a neat thing to discover. 

There's cases where folks didn't know we needed the accommodation, like the ranger who did the evening program at the top amphitheater in Canyonlands. She asked if we needed to move the program to the lower area, but that was after we carried up Teddy and his chair. We were perfectly fine since we were already there and didn't feel the least bit slighted that the program was there because it was much better views. 

Then there was the ranger who switched our tour tickets at Mesa Verde once we realized that Teddy could be in a backpack on a tour despite having to climb ladders. He happily accommodated us by swapping our tickets and getting us all together on the same tour. Now, mind you, on that tour I overheard one American asking a couple from Australia whether they were so over the top with accessibility to the "ridiculous" extent we are in the United States. I couldn't help myself. I chimed in to say that although the laws might be a pain, they sure make life a lot easier for our family and allow us to have these types of experiences.

Accessibility sometimes looks like me carrying 50 pounds.

Yet, somehow despite that lady 's complaints, there's hotels that don't have elevators, which seems a bit odd to me simply because we're the type of (lazy) culture that expects them everywhere. We passed up an upgrade at one hotel that was offered because a first-floor room made life much easier than a cushier second-floor room.

And the thing is that I wouldn't have noticed most of this 5 years ago. Well, except maybe the elevator thing because I was really pregnant then and climbing even a flight of stairs made me winded.