A question was asked on Blonde’s board if we would still go to
Vegas if we were unable to walk. So I thought I'd add my reply to my blog.
I'll still go. I always thought Vegas was one of the easiest
places to visit when old age or debility
made traveling difficult. There are
plenty of people to help and the bathrooms are everywhere. There are always places to find inexpensive
and good food.
They make easy room for folks who can't walk at the live poker
tables. Bob Reynolds joined the Sam's Town game I played in this
past trip. I knew him when he was walking with difficulty and
playing at El Cortez. Now he has a scooter. He was trying to figure
out if he could play the 125 hours that month in order to qualify for the $599
promotion or if his life just too busy to commit that much time to poker that
month.
I see folks come in my favorite show "Toast of the Town" at Sam's Town in all stages of old age debility. In that venue old folks rule. There is a special section there for wheel chairs and folks with walkers, so they get a good view of the show.
The city bus lifts the folks in scooters up and the bus drivers strap them in a special section with their chairs. Sometimes, if there are two folks with scooters, one has to wait for the next bus. One fellow told the driver he rides the same route everyday and has the parking down to a science and even latched and unlatched his own front strap. I guess he works somewhere and rides the bus to work.
Pools now are mandated to have a machine that lowers people into the water. I saw one at the Gold Coast and one at the Orleans. At the Gold Coast my new talking buddy was interested because he is in pretty bad shape now and expects someday to be unable to shuffle in to swim every day. He likes the Gold Coast because it has easy pool access from the rooms.
I think I'd stay downtown. It is easier to have a good variety of places to go.
I just had a small taste of debility this past trip. I rubbed toe blisters and I had only packed one pair of sneakers. It was painful to walk until I hobbled into Walmarts and bought some open toed black slipper like footware with hard outdoor soles and thin black socks to match. That took the blisters out of the rubbing area and I could shuffle along most places, the shuffle keeping the blistered toes extended beyond the strap that held the shoe on my foot. Some old woman yelled at me, "Can't you pick up your feet," but actually I looked less strange than I at first imagined I would. I started noticing what other people wore on their feet and found that plenty of folks wore little nothing shoes or flip flops and I fit in better than I first imagined.
I used them to take off the blister rubbing pressure off the tender spots on days between between lugging suitcases from hotel to hotel. Then I had to put on the sneakers back on. Two pair of socks helped on those days and it helped that the days I rested my toes allowed enough healing to manage the days I needed better food protection.
However, my fairly sedentary winter softened my skin and reduced my stamina and with a muscle I pulled just a week before going to vegas, it was a bit of a marathon iron man experience to go from hotel to hotel with my 85 pound suitcase and lifting it up bus stairs.
Downtown is a fine answer to that as well. Hotel changes only require rolling. And there is always the taxi cab.
I did give up plans to go to Red Rock and to walk the campus to see the cactus gardens and the newly renovated museum as well as other exploratory hike plans, although were I in a scooter I could do the campus and Red Rock if I skipped the hiking trails.
I see folks come in my favorite show "Toast of the Town" at Sam's Town in all stages of old age debility. In that venue old folks rule. There is a special section there for wheel chairs and folks with walkers, so they get a good view of the show.
The city bus lifts the folks in scooters up and the bus drivers strap them in a special section with their chairs. Sometimes, if there are two folks with scooters, one has to wait for the next bus. One fellow told the driver he rides the same route everyday and has the parking down to a science and even latched and unlatched his own front strap. I guess he works somewhere and rides the bus to work.
Pools now are mandated to have a machine that lowers people into the water. I saw one at the Gold Coast and one at the Orleans. At the Gold Coast my new talking buddy was interested because he is in pretty bad shape now and expects someday to be unable to shuffle in to swim every day. He likes the Gold Coast because it has easy pool access from the rooms.
I think I'd stay downtown. It is easier to have a good variety of places to go.
I just had a small taste of debility this past trip. I rubbed toe blisters and I had only packed one pair of sneakers. It was painful to walk until I hobbled into Walmarts and bought some open toed black slipper like footware with hard outdoor soles and thin black socks to match. That took the blisters out of the rubbing area and I could shuffle along most places, the shuffle keeping the blistered toes extended beyond the strap that held the shoe on my foot. Some old woman yelled at me, "Can't you pick up your feet," but actually I looked less strange than I at first imagined I would. I started noticing what other people wore on their feet and found that plenty of folks wore little nothing shoes or flip flops and I fit in better than I first imagined.
I used them to take off the blister rubbing pressure off the tender spots on days between between lugging suitcases from hotel to hotel. Then I had to put on the sneakers back on. Two pair of socks helped on those days and it helped that the days I rested my toes allowed enough healing to manage the days I needed better food protection.
However, my fairly sedentary winter softened my skin and reduced my stamina and with a muscle I pulled just a week before going to vegas, it was a bit of a marathon iron man experience to go from hotel to hotel with my 85 pound suitcase and lifting it up bus stairs.
Downtown is a fine answer to that as well. Hotel changes only require rolling. And there is always the taxi cab.
I did give up plans to go to Red Rock and to walk the campus to see the cactus gardens and the newly renovated museum as well as other exploratory hike plans, although were I in a scooter I could do the campus and Red Rock if I skipped the hiking trails.
It was triple digit temperatures and terrible pollen coughs that
contributed to shortening what I had planned this trip as well as blistered
feet and pulled muscle.
The blisters healed fine so that I could still go dancing at the Latin Show at Eastside Cannery the last week of my trip. So, blisters were a good bit different than permanent chair life. However, I have danced with women in my life who were in wheel chairs and figured ways to match the beat with body and wheel motions.
When I was a teenager one of my teenage friends was a girl permanently in a wheel chair. We used to pick her up and wheel her to weekly dances at the church. She gave nothing up just modified to meet her debility. We could stop traffic on a busy city street and cross where we wanted just by signaling the cars to stop while pushing her across.
She got a great kick out of that power over traffic.
This past trip I did go out to Club Fortune in Henderson, as far out as the bus would take me, and there was a bit of a walk to that casino from Boulder Highway, a fine open airy walk with the mountains clear and looking close in the distance. It was a cheap game and a cheap tournament and when Bob and I talked, I told him about it. He decided he would give it a try.
"The sidewalks from where the bus drops you off are wide and smooth," I said, "I think you could manage fine in your scooter." He had very little doubt of that.
So I'd keep going and doing, just modifying where I needed to modify. I'd probably take someone along with me, maybe some cute and sexy bit of stuff who needed a free outing. It would cost more to go. I'd have to greatly improve my game, but downtown is still the frugal place to stay, the most mobile, and has the better gambling anyway.
The blisters healed fine so that I could still go dancing at the Latin Show at Eastside Cannery the last week of my trip. So, blisters were a good bit different than permanent chair life. However, I have danced with women in my life who were in wheel chairs and figured ways to match the beat with body and wheel motions.
When I was a teenager one of my teenage friends was a girl permanently in a wheel chair. We used to pick her up and wheel her to weekly dances at the church. She gave nothing up just modified to meet her debility. We could stop traffic on a busy city street and cross where we wanted just by signaling the cars to stop while pushing her across.
She got a great kick out of that power over traffic.
This past trip I did go out to Club Fortune in Henderson, as far out as the bus would take me, and there was a bit of a walk to that casino from Boulder Highway, a fine open airy walk with the mountains clear and looking close in the distance. It was a cheap game and a cheap tournament and when Bob and I talked, I told him about it. He decided he would give it a try.
"The sidewalks from where the bus drops you off are wide and smooth," I said, "I think you could manage fine in your scooter." He had very little doubt of that.
So I'd keep going and doing, just modifying where I needed to modify. I'd probably take someone along with me, maybe some cute and sexy bit of stuff who needed a free outing. It would cost more to go. I'd have to greatly improve my game, but downtown is still the frugal place to stay, the most mobile, and has the better gambling anyway.
I so think it makes a difference if the debility is permanent or
temporary. Temporary loss of mobility
might make me stay home until I healed up.
But permanent loss would mean I’d have to learn to compensate.
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