Wheelchair Around the World

By Patrick Simpson

Patrick and Anne Simpson had a not so uncommon dream to travel the world upon their retirement. A major obstacle had to be crossed before this dream could become a reality. Anne, debilitated by a rare joint disease, would be confined to a wheelchair for much of their eight-month journey. Wheelchair Around the World is their heartwarming and inspiring account of a couple living out their dream.
Much more than just another travelogue, Patrick and Anne have paved the way for other physically challenged travelers. This book undoubtedly will entertain armchair and wheelchair travelers alike, who will get a sense of these faraway places through Simpson's firsthand accounts. The book also includes several appendixes and an extensive bibliography, intended to help other physically challenged travelers plan their own trips, with foreknowledge of wheelchair accessible facilities, hotels, and transportation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrick Simpson
• Release date: Aug 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466147706

Patrick Simpson

I've written three nonfiction books: Wheelchair Around the World (1997), Wheelchair Down Under (1999) and Whither thou Goest (2001). Ten years in the making, Desert Angels (2011) is my first fiction book, an epic historical novel based on the American West's Bannock Indian War of 1878. I've written travel articles for local publications and was editor and publisher of the Raleigh North Gideons International newsletter for fourteen years. I retired from IBM in 1993 as an advisory information developer after having helped develop several IBM software user publications. At the start of my career, I received scholarships to Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, where I majored in English.

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What others are saying about Wheelchair Around the World:

"Through stunning photos and vivid detail, Simpson teases each of our senses, beginning with images of Ireland’s dazzling spray-covered Cliffs of Moher, Hawaii’s breathtaking volcanoes and the daunting height of Japan’s infamous Mt. Fuji… exudes an addictive spirit of adventure and faith in God."… The Amp, Disabled American Veterans, Malverne, New York, Jan./Feb. 1998.

"… feels the book encourages handicapped people to reach beyond the limits others may impose on them."… Washington Daily News, Washington, North Carolina, Dec. 19, 1997.

"Heartwarming, inspiring account of a couple who overcame the obstacles of traveling the world while physically challenged."… Scoop, Washington, North Carolina, Dec. 21, 1997.

"What a wonderful and interesting story! It’s a very positive book—one full of anecdotes, folklore and history… an exceptional book." Nancy Sue Burns, editor of The Tri-Town News, Sidney, New York, Jan. 28, 1998.

"Inspirational."… Paraplegia News, (magazine), Phoenix, Arizona, Feb., 1998.

"… combines personal reflections with a ‘rough guide’ style describing the many places they visit."… Target md, magazine of the Muscular Dystrophy Group, London, Spring 1998.

* * * *

Wheelchair Around the World

by

Patrick Simpson

http://www.BooksByPatrickSimpson.com

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Patrick Simpson at Smashwords

Wheelchair Around the World

Copyright 1997-2011 by Patrick Simpson

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce

this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever

except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law.

This book is available in print at most online retailers.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

* * * *

Acknowledgments

For wheelchair and armchair travelers alike who, until now, have put their dreams of travel to far-off lands on hold. To the Lord Jesus Christ for His loving care, to my wife Anne for her extraordinary courage, and to my mother, Alma D. Ready, for her hours of editorial assistance and invaluable advice (mostly taken), without which this book would have been impossible.

* * * *

Table of Contents

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1 — The Dream Takes Shape

Chapter 2 — Honolulu on One Leg

Chapter 3 — Wheelchair on Maui

Chapter 4 — The Big Island

Chapter 5 — Adventures in Fiji

Chapter 6 — Singapore and Malaysia: A fine time

Chapter 7 — Wheeling up Hong Kong

Chapter 8 — Macau: Las Vegas of the East

Chapter 9 — One Night in the People’s Republic of China

Chapter 10 — Taiwan: Beautiful Island and Typhoon Doug

Chapter 11 — Tokyo: Life in a Ryokan

Chapter 12 — The Street of Rock and Roll

Chapter 13 — Mount Fuji by Flashlight

Chapter 14 — Bullet Train to Kyoto

Chapter 15 — Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Haunted by Flashbacks

Chapter 16 — Goodbye Japan—Hello Siberia!

Chapter 17 — London to Edinburgh: The Great Tattoo

Chapter 18 — Scotland: Views from a Wheelchair

Chapter 19 — England: Wheelchair Wayfarer

Chapter 20 — Wales: Where Charles Became Prince

Chapter 21 — Home of the Bard

Chapter 22 — Bath and Guided Wheeling Tours

Chapter 23 — Ireland: The Lovely Country

Chapter 24 — Wheeling Along the Irish Sea Walls

Chapter 25 — Irish Nights and Days in Killarney and Beyond

Chapter 26 — The Aran Islands, the Wild Connemara, and Atop Croagh Patrick

Chapter 27 — Mythical Sligo to Letterkenny

Chapter 28 — Northern Ireland: Wheelchair on the Walls

Chapter 29 — Sunny Belfast: Wheeling the Control Zone

Chapter 30 — St. Patrick Country

Chapter 31 — Home Again, Home Again

Epilogue

Appendix A: Provisions

Appendix B: Directory for Disabled Travelers

Appendix C: Religion in Japan

Appendix D: The Story of Ireland

Appendix E: Bibliography

About this Book

About the Author

* * * *

Prologue

Sometimes a winner is just a dreamer who wouldn’t quit. These words echoed in my mind on 4 February 1994, as we boarded US Air flight 1007 bound from Raleigh to Charlotte, North Carolina 7:10 A.M. We would catch flight 1001 to Los Angeles and later, a flight on Air New Zealand to Honolulu.

Were we just dreamers? Were we crazy? Who in their right mind would sell their home of ten years and their car (nearly as old) to take off on a nine-month trip around the world? Not only that but his wife was on crutches. Anne had incurable Charcot joint disease in right ankle and her foot was twisted sideways at a nearly ninety-degree angle.

But Anne said she would go. I told her mother and father I would take care of her. We would miss our children and grandchildren, especially little ten-month-old granddaughter Raven. How we loved her little smile, and taking her to lunch, and caring for her when her mother was at work.

We were going into a different world now, where the seasons are reversed, night and day are backwards, and even the heavens are turned around. This is a world we had only dreamed of and seen pictures of and heard music from A Separate Creation. The pictures and sounds had come together to form a dream and the dream had come to possess us. The dream had come to take us there, borne on the wings of flight 1007.

* * * *

Introduction

This book is the true epic of my wife, Anne’s nine-month trek around the world in a wheelchair, perhaps the first woman to do so. It is for disabled and armchair travelers alike who, until now, have put their travel dreams on hold.

An operation in 1993 failed to correct her condition, the rare Charcot’s Joint disease, for which there is no known cure. And since the doctors proclaimed her foot would get no better or worse for several months, we decided that the time to go on our long-awaited trip was now or never! We sold our house and car, put our belongings in storage and left Raleigh (and our children and grandchildren) in February of 1994.

It was our chance for a trip of a lifetime and she wasn’t going to let a little thing like a deteriorating right foot stop her. It was more a voyage than a trip in that she sailed in her wheelchair while I, her author-husband, steered her for countless miles. She saw the world from a wheelchair and loved it, even though some days the pain in her foot underneath the bandages was so bad she wanted to quit. Only three months after our return, her foot was amputated just below the knee.

For us it was an adventure of a lifetime; we discovered places, people, and events we had never dreamed of. Our life-long dream of travel grew into an epic 254-day journey around the world through Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Our travels through New Zealand and Australia were so extensive they will be told in a forthcoming book entitled Wheelchair Down Under.

All told, we took seventeen plane rides, rented ten cars, slept overnight on three ferries, and rode on cable-cars, subways, bullet-trains, fishing boats, and pony-carts. I learned that I wasn’t too old to climb mountains and kept in shape by hiking three Hawaiian volcanoes, Mount Fuji in Japan, Croagh Patrick in Ireland, and several others. Our total expenses impacted our budget by no more than the cost of a new mid-size car, proving that nearly anyone could afford this trip, handicapped or not.

Our hope is that our story will inspire others to travel in spite of their handicaps. Anne proved it can be done. She has more guts and courage than anyone I’ve ever met. I call her, Anne, our Lady of the Wheelchair.

"There’s a bit of the Traveler in all of us, but

very few of us know where we’re going."

— Into the West (1993)

* * * *

Chapter 1 — The Dream Takes Shape

We had been planning this trip for several years, and for the last two or three years had gotten serious about it. About traveling around the world, that is. Not for two weeks or two months, but for nearly a year—a real honest-to-goodness trip around the world!

First, our four kids had to grow up and move out. Anne required a foot operation, hopefully in time to heal for the journey. Then I had to retire. That part wasn’t hard, because at IBM everyone was retiring!

We couldn’t afford to travel around the world and maintain a home in the USA at the same time. We would have to sell. The year was 1993 and the market in Raleigh was hot … the hottest in years. We needed to sell fast—in the summer—while the in-ground pool still looked inviting.

There was no time to fool around. In June we hired the best real estate agent we could find, a supercharged go-getter named Phyllis Wolborsky. We told her Just tell us what to do to get it ready and we’ll do it! She told us to paint the walls and ceilings white, clean everything else, and replace our ugly avocado-green kitchen appliances with new white ones.

We hired a young Korean worker to paint the interior, while Anne and I worked on the rest of the house. Five short weeks later Phyllis came back, excited about the improvements. On 30 July, we listed the house priced to sell.

The next day, Anne found a ten-foot-by-twenty-foot personal storage unit nearby where we could store some of our belongings and empty the house out a bit. It would make the house seem more spacious and easier to sell, according to Phyllis. I spent much of that night packing up boxes, and the next day my two sons, David and Tommy, and Anne’s brother John helped us move them into the storage unit.

That week, Phyllis brought two bus-loads of realtors through the house for a preview, and on Saturday we had an offer from Milton and Holly, a couple in their thirties with two small children. After some dickering we settled on a price with the buyer paying the closing costs. In order to take advantage of the IRS’s one-time exclusion of capital gains up to $125,000 for people age 55 or older, we scheduled the closing for my 55th birthday, October 29th. I figured the tax savings would pay for half the trip.

About this time, I started getting serious about our trip’s itinerary. I called Molly, my cherub-like, always-smiling, travel-agent friend. She was once my teacher in an adult education travel-agent class. We met on Thursday morning and got a good start on our itinerary, even filling out visas.

At the end of August, Anne consulted with several doctors at the UNC hospital in nearby Chapel Hill. She’d had an operation in March in an attempt to realign the bones in her right foot. The operation had failed and the bones had recently collapsed, like a house of cards. She was in constant pain and already spending a great deal of time in a wheelchair. For over three hours they discussed her options, including amputation just below the right knee. We were left with the impression it would be healed well enough for her to travel by the end of December. Later, she talked with several other amputees over the phone and found this would not be the case. Anne ultimately decided to keep her foot and wear whatever special shoes and braces were necessary.

Wednesday, 15 September: We said farewell to our piano. We had no place to store it so we sold it to a used piano dealer. It had been in the family since 1976 when our daughter Diana was only seven years old and already showing signs of great musical talent. Now an accomplished singer and musician in Boston, her career was showing great promise.

The next day I spent the afternoon in NC State University’s library studying the travels of Mark Twain. This prolific writer had always fascinated me. Over a hundred years ago he had written Around the Equator and More Tramps Abroad, books about his travels around the world. We would be following his footsteps and, perhaps later, I could compare notes. It seemed that no matter where we wanted to go, Twain had been there: Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Asia, Europe, and even Africa. We were beginning to feel like tramps abroad ourselves.

Tuesday, 5 October: Anne and I had had complete physical exams and now began a series of travel vaccination shots for our proposed itinerary of Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, South Africa, Greece, Italy, Europe, and Great Britain. We got tetanus shots, flu shots, and were tested for tuberculosis. We had to start now because some vaccinations had to be given in a series, and others couldn’t always be given simultaneously. The doctor worked out a schedule for November and December.

Still unresolved was where to stay after we sold the house. A motel was expensive and apartment landlords wanted long-term leases. We placed an employment-wanted ad in the local Ad-Pak which read: House sitters available. Christian retired IBMer & wife will house-sit your home Oct 29 through Dec 26. We had one call! It was from a couple in their seventies going to Florida for the winter. They wanted us to stay through March, so it didn’t work out.

Sunday, 17 October: The weather was cool and drizzly. It was major moving day, the day we would move all the big, heavy stuff. We had held a yard sale the day before but still owned a lot of stuff including a couch and two chairs. John, David and Tommy arrived and we loaded it up. We took our first load to the storage unit and found the gate locked! It was supposed to be open at 7:00 A.M.!

Tommy climbed over the high, chain-link fence and tried to rouse the live-in owner who was apparently gone for the weekend. That failing, he found two emergency phone numbers. David and I called from a nearby pay-phone and eventually back-up number two let us in. It’s a good thing because we had the truck only until noon!

Friday, 22 October: We spent much of the afternoon preparing for another yard sale. Last week’s sale had put only a dent in our stuff and we had to be out of the house in one week. It was time to get serious and really let go. We filled the carport and driveway with hundreds of castoffs and covered the whole hodgepodge with the swimming pool cover in case of rain. This yard sale was going to be really big.

Saturday morning came, and it was cool and crisp. I spent over an hour putting up signs as far as a mile away, each spray-painted with a white stenciled arrow pointing towards our house. My motto for a yard sale is Advertise and they will come!

And they came—great swarms of people. We kissed nearly everything goodbye. I sold my stepladders, most of my tools, chairs, my twenty-five-year-old lawn cart, my thirty-year-old toolmaker’s tool box, and even the lawn mower. Anne sold her dresses and shoes, kitchenware, and cookbooks. We sold hoses, saws, nails, cans of paint, rug remnants and the swimming pool cover. There were things that had lumps and things that had bumps. There were things that wouldn’t stand up and things that wouldn’t lie down. We were disposing our estate even though we were still alive!

It felt good to get rid of this baggage of a lifetime. Our grand total for the two weekends—$518! We were so tired afterwards that we napped for hours on our one remaining bed.

Wednesday, 27 October: After much apartment-looking and soul-searching, Anne asked John if we could stay with him for a few weeks until our trip began. He said he would be honored. God bless John Budine!

David helped me move several boxes and our bed and TV into John’s apartment. Our grandchildren, Michael and Krystal, stayed behind with Anne and raced from room to room in the empty house playing hide-and-go-seek, listening to their echoes in the emptiness, and saying goodbye to the house that had always been Grandma’s and Grandpa’s.

Thursday, 28 October: After ten years, this was the day we had to be out! We woke up on the floor of our living room, having camped out on blankets and a throw rug. Sparkles, our little dog, slept on the floor with us and took her last early morning walk with me from this house. It was a cool, sunny autumn day.

Anne’s job was to decide where the remainder of our belongings would go—to John’s apartment or to storage. I spent the day moving several carloads to both places.

Late in the afternoon, Milton (the buyer) arrived with his realtor for a final walk-through. Anne had worked hard all day packing, scrubbing floors, cleaning closets—all from her wheelchair. The house passed. Milton wanted to start sanding floors in the morning, and we said he was welcome to it!

We took the last load to John’s, Sparkles to Tommy’s, and ourselves to Burger King for a late supper. When we returned to our new home in John’s apartment, he had made up our bed. It sure looked good!

Friday, 29 October: Well, this was the big day! My fifty-fifth birthday had arrived right on schedule. The house closing started at 11:00 A.M., and by noon all the papers were signed and I handed the keys over to a smiling Milton and Holly. We couldn’t tell who was more excited, we or them!

After the closing we celebrated by having a salad-bar lunch at the nearby Wendy’s. You could also call it a retirement dinner because this was also the day I retired from IBM. As part of a buy-out package, I had actually left the company two years before on a pre-retirement leave of absence; but today was the day my retirement became official.

After all the excitement, we rested up for that night, when I was scheduled to lead the sixth of eight monthly training meetings for new Gideons in South Durham. Anne and I have been members of the Gideons for years. They are an association of Christian businessmen and professionals whose object is to win others for the Lord Jesus Christ, mainly by placing Bibles in hospitals, schools, and institutions. Most people are familiar with the Gideons through the Bibles they have seen in hotel rooms around the world.

After the meeting, our friends Mack and Juanita took us to a local diner where they treated us to a banana split to cap off this truly memorable day.

Sunday, 7 November: At church we prayed for peace in Ireland.

Ever since my solo five-week trip there in 1992, I had felt that God had a purpose for me in Northern Ireland, and I had been praying for peace in that troubled land ever since. I planned to go back, this time with Anne.

On Monday, we tied up loose ends, canceled the homeowner insurance on our house and made sure our mortgage had been paid. We also notified the post office of our change-of-address and canceled the daily newspaper. We applied for a ten-thousand-dollar line of credit at our bank and requested that our credit union line-of-credit be expanded to ten thousand dollars. (Both were later approved.) You can’t have too much credit when you’re twelve thousand miles away.

There was no phone in the apartment so we made all our calls from pay-phones or from our children’s phones. We soon grew to liking it that way. We could call you, but you couldn’t call us. We were the harassers, not the harassees. We got no phone bills, crank calls, wrong numbers, or fraudulent charges—life was great!

The next morning I drove to the old neighborhood for an early morning hike, this time without Sparkles. A sense of loss struck me as I realized that my faithful friend would no longer be hiking with me. Things were beginning to change fast now. Our journey was drawing nearer and nearer. Would we really go? Would Anne’s foot hold out? Or would we get cold feet at the last minute?

Thursday, 11 November: It was freezing as I took another early morning hike. I wore Anne’s sweater, because I couldn’t find my own, and pulled the sleeves over my hands because I couldn’t find my gloves either. Later, I couldn’t find my hiking shoes.

Well, that was it. I just had to dig through our storage unit and find my clothes as well as Anne’s pots and pans and anything else we had been missing. We dug through at least twenty boxes and found everything except my computer glasses. (They are still missing.)

Monday, 15 November: It was time for November’s shots, this time for polio and meningitis, both good for three years. Anne also received a pneumonia shot. The doctor gave each of us an International Certificate of Vaccination, our official record of immunizations, commonly known as the yellow card. He told us to keep them with our passports. They had to be COMPLETE AND ACCURATE IN EVERY DETAIL; otherwise we could be detained at international ports-of-entry.

Later, I sent our completed membership applications to American Youth Hostels. With a membership card, we could stay inexpensively at six thousand hostels in seventy countries and get hundreds of discounts on travel, restaurants, museums and much more. We could also meet people from all over the world and swap recipes in do-it-yourself kitchens.

Tuesday, 16 November: A friend came up with a new method of travel: Go as far as you can into the heart of a country and then slug a cop. They will immediately deport you, and you get to travel at no cost. Anne and I went to the public library in hopes of working up a somewhat better plan. We got a table by the travel section, grabbed a large Atlas and began.

We decided to leave out Israel, as that would be better done in cool weather as part of a church or religious group. India was still in; mountainous Darjeeling would be in the middle of monsoon season in July, but comparatively cool. We also decided to go to Greece by way of Istanbul and the Greek Islands. We checked out three guidebooks on Southeast Asia and Turkey.

Ambitious? Yes. But it was by far not the final itinerary.

Tuesday, 30 November: I had spent a lot of time in bookstores checking out guidebooks. There was one for every country. Especially good were the Lonely Planet guidebooks and Moon Publication’s handbook series, both emphasizing affordable travel for independent travelers. But the guidebooks, when added up for several countries, tended to be heavy and expensive.

What would we do with them after we left each country? Throw them away? Mail them back? Carry them around forever? We could check them out from the library, but we would be gone for months, not weeks.

I finally decided to build my own guidebook. Using the copy machine in our local drugstore I copied sections from library guidebooks of all the smaller countries in our itinerary such as Fiji and Singapore. I put them in neat chapters in a binder and—Voilà!—our own throwaway guidebooks! For the bigger countries, such as England and Japan, I would buy guidebooks one at a time and dispose of them as we left.

Sunday, 5 December: I started making lists to keep track of all the things we had left to do, but mainly we waited. We waited for Anne’s foot to heal. We waited for Christmas to come. But mainly we waited. Sometimes it felt as if we were waiting for a bus that never came.

What distressed me most was that Anne’s foot was not healing. How were we going to travel with her foot the way it was? How long could I do everything for her that she couldn’t do? It was discouraging. There was even a possibility that her foot would require skin grafts or more surgery. We prayed and she decided to see her doctor on Monday. After a series of appointments, the doctors decided the foot was healing nicely on its own, but they gave her pain-killing tablets to be taken as needed.

Tuesday, 14 December: I designed and ordered new business cards. People abroad love them, and they help them remember the American with the foreign name. The cards improve your reception everywhere, especially when traveling inexpensively. I was free to be whoever I wanted to be; I identified myself as a professional travel writer.

Friday, 17 December: Another red-letter day: my last as the trainer of new Gideons in South Durham. This evening’s graduation and election of new officers was held as part of a Christmas dinner meeting in Bill and Ida’s home, two of our many new Gideon friends. I gave a farewell speech, and they were on their own. With God’s help they would do just fine. I shall miss them.

Wednesday, 29 December: Shots again; this time for hepatitis and yellow fever. For typhoid fever, the doctor gave us four Vivotif Berna vaccine capsules, one to be taken every other day. He also gave us fifty Mefloquine (anti-malaria) capsules and told us to take the first one a week before our departure and one a week thereafter. Anne also received a large supply of precautionary prescriptions and antibiotics for her foot problems.

Tuesday, 11 January: Anne officially resigned as cafeteria manager for a local insurance company. She had already left in October, after her doctor had declared her as officially disabled.

Our trip had been delayed so long that I now had time to file our income taxes. I could have put them off, but filing extensions was nearly as bad as just doing it. Besides, the normal extension was four months. We would be gone much longer than that—and I certainly didn’t relish doing them while overseas! I searched through our storage unit, found our records, filled out the regular forms, and mailed them in.

Friday, 21 January: Molly had lost interest in our trip because she sensed little or no commissions were forthcoming. Anne and I were becoming too interested in independent travel and wanted to find our own accommodations, tours, and transportation. Jerry, my old friend from IBM, now a travel counselor, also looked over our plans but nothing came of it either.

Almost six weeks before, Tommy’s landlord said Sparkles had to go because they already had a dog, so we asked our former neighbor, Jeannie, if Sparkles could live with her for awhile. She not only said yes, she said, I guess that will be my Christmas present this year! That night we took Sparkles and her belongings to Jeannie’s house. They seemed very happy to see each other. God had blessed them both!

But Jeannie had called this morning to say she was too sick to handle Sparkles anymore, even though she still wanted to. I’m sure she felt bad about the whole thing, but Sparkles seemed happy as we loaded up the car with her stuff and drove away. Tommy and his wife, Riley, said she could move back with them because they were moving to Durham soon.

On Sunday afternoon, Sparkles and I took a hike for old times’ sake. Right away I could see she was out of shape. Being kept in a house for weeks had taken its toll. After two miles she just stopped, completely exhausted. I had to alternately carry her and let her walk until we got back to the car.

That was our last hike together.

By the following Monday it had become clear to us that the key to finding discounted airline tickets was in finding the right agent. I learned that such agents were listed in the Sunday classified travel ads in big city newspapers. We went to the local library and looked up a New York Sunday Times. Many around-the-world and Circle-Pacific tours were listed. We prayed long and hard that night, not only for wisdom, but for plane tickets.

The next day we went to our son David’s house to use his phone for a planned day of tracking down the right agent and the right tickets. By now I had my own copy of the Times and we started down the list. It didn’t look good: the first agent didn’t do around-the-world tickets; another handled students only; the next was for Europe only. There was no answer at numbers four and five. The girl at number six wouldn’t talk to us unless we gave her our charge card number and guaranteed we would buy a ticket. We kept trying.

There was one last place, Air Brokers International, located on the West Coast. I talked to their travel agent, super-helpful Kristina. In no time at all, she nailed down our itinerary. We would leave on 4 February for Honolulu and then go on to Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and London. We would return home on 15 October. Our tickets were good for a year and cost only $2,825 each! She would even get our Japan Rail passes. Kristina faxed a three-page itinerary to us, and I made copies of it for friends and relatives.

She told me to send a cashier’s check and our tickets should arrive a week from Thursday by Federal Express. I told her, Let’s hope so. We are leaving the next morning! Not only had the Lord answered our prayers, He'd answered them BIG!

Wednesday, 26 January: I called Allan, a travel specialist, and we signed up for first-night-stay hotels at Honolulu, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei and paid for a rental car in Oahu for one week. He worked with us for a good part of the next three days, even loaning us several good travel videos.

Meanwhile, studying the guidebooks in detail now, I had discovered that prices were much cheaper if I booked transportation, accommodations and rental cars on my own. Anne and I talked it over and decided we would be better off touring the world inexpensively as independent travelers. We wanted our plans to be flexible, not locked in with nine month’s worth of hotel, car and travel reservations.

On Friday, I met with Allan after lunch and explained our situation. He didn’t seem too upset, saying it was probably best for both of us: he worked on commission and wasn’t making anything from us anyhow. We shook hands and I left, actually feeling relieved. We were free to travel our way—no structure—no timetables. It was wonderful!

I came home and told Anne what had happened. She was happy too.

During the day, Anne’s foot began to swell. I took her to Kaiser Permanente’s Urgent Care office where they treated her for three hours. They gave her two antibiotic shots and she went back the next morning for two more. She felt better but our day of departure was getting closer.

Tuesday, 1 February: John bought our old car that afternoon and I got an International Driving Permit at the AAA (American Automobile Association) office. It was basically a translation in several languages of my USA driver’s license; it came in handy later.

I made up an address and phone list of friends and relatives and a complete list of financial, medical, and insurance information for both of us, complete with contacts, addresses, phone numbers, and account numbers. I left a copy in our safe deposit box and signed up David as deputy so he could have access to the box if necessary. Also into the box went a copy of my journal, a computer diskette of our family tree and Anne’s jewelry.

Wednesday, 3 February: While it snowed we sat gloomily through supper pondering what madness had led us to want to leave our family for so long, especially our little granddaughter, Raven. We had both become quite attached to her and it would be very hard to leave her behind. Later, Anne cried as they played together; the realization had set in that we were really going and would be leaving her behind for nine months. We did some serious thinking and praying that night. We decided it was now or never.

Thursday, 3 February: Over the last several weeks we had shopped for what was hopefully the right stuff. Our objective was to travel light. From past experience I knew if we couldn’t comfortably window-shop for an hour while carrying our entire luggage, we needed to lighten up.

We packed our stuff into our two Back Door suitcases (ordered from Rick Steves’ Back Door Catalog). They were carry-on size, designed to fit under the seat of an airplane or in the overhead luggage rack on a Japanese train, and they converted easily from suitcases to backpacks. One smaller bag contained Anne’s medical supplies, including three boxes of bandages, anti-malaria capsules, and several hundred antibiotic and pain-killer pills. I also picked up a Hawaiian guidebook and a notebook to use as a journal. (See appendix for a complete inventory of our luggage.)

On this, our last day in Raleigh, we began the packing process in earnest. We made three piles: one to take, one to store and one to throw away. I made a final trip to our storage unit and pushed the last few boxes inside, just out of range of the overhead door. (There is always room for just one more box!) Anne confirmed our flights to Honolulu and we signed up for common carrier flight insurance at our bank— $250,000 death benefits to each other or $500,000 to our children if we both died at once in a plane crash.

Federal Express delivered our airline tickets to David’s house at 3:00 P.M., right on schedule! In the package were US Air tickets to Los Angeles and Air New Zealand tickets to Honolulu, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia. Kristina said there was just not enough time to cut the remaining tickets so she included vouchers for the rest of the journey, redeemable for the real tickets at their Sydney office. She also said to contact her when we got to London so she could send us tickets for a return flight to Raleigh.

That night we said our goodbyes and our prayers.

* * * *

Chapter 2 — Honolulu on One Leg

Friday, 4 February: And so it began …

The big day had come—Day One—the new beginning. Our little travel alarm rang at 4:00 A.M. We arose quickly and ate. I packed the car. John drove us to the airport on his way to work. We said our farewells to him in front of US Air’s terminal A.

We found our way up the elevator to Gate nineteen to meet our 7:10 A.M. flight to Charlotte. The metal detector had a problem with the airport wheelchair and the bolts in Anne’s crutches but security waved us through. We hadn’t thought it possible to take our own wheelchair around the world so had left it behind. This soon proved to be a mistake but, happily, a correctable one.

The sun was rising as we took off for Charlotte. Crazy Pat and Anne were on their way! After over two years of planning, it was really happening! I believed God had put this trip together for His reasons, to be revealed to us as time went on. I prayed a short prayer and somehow the words came to me, Sometimes a winner is just a dreamer who wouldn’t quit.

I think many people, including relatives and close friends, believed this trip was never going to happen. It was too improbable, too insane. What two people in their right mind would embark on a trip around the world, with one of them in a wheelchair suffering with an inflamed foot! Some people, I know, had given us only a week at best!

We landed in Charlotte on time and were greeted by one of the airport’s transporters, whose driver took us to Gate B-5 to meet our flight to Los Angeles. It was a fast ride through long corridors. It seemed surreal as the breeze whipped past our ears, turning cold in an especially long breezeway. We all turned up our collars to keep warm. Back home, our children and grandchildren were sleeping soundly.

Our plane was equipped with TV monitors located over the aisle. For the first time, we saw the emergency door and seat belt presentation done on TV, rather than live. Also new to us were the four-by-nine-inch Flight Link TV screens mounted on the back of every seat facing each passenger. The screen displayed several icons, each representing a different service such as: telephone, stock quotes, fax machine, etcetera. To select a service, one used a hand-held control device, initially mounted under the arm rest. For almost any service selected there was a charge placed on the passenger’s charge card.

We arrived in Los Angeles at 6:00 P.M., late because of head winds. We took the shuttle to the Thomas Bradley International terminal. There we learned we had to call for a wheelchair. Normally wheelchairs are all about, but apparently that was not true in this terminal. The food at the airport was too expensive so we waited out our hunger pangs until we boarded our Air New Zealand flight to Honolulu.

We were the first to board because Anne was in a wheelchair. We were given three seats together with the middle one free for Anne’s foot. As we sat there listening to forest music (New Age), we couldn’t help but study the wonderfully efficient stewardesses. They wore Maori dark green dresses with a fern design but had taken off their unique brown derby hats. They reminded me of the British with a down-under twist.

We were given free earphones to listen to twelve channels of music and TV Note: if you watched The Firm on your way to Japan, it was in English. If you traveled from Japan, the same movie was in Japanese.

It was dark when we picked up our Dollar Car Sundance rental at the Honolulu Airport and made our way east to Waikiki. We found our hotel, the Royal Garden at Waikiki, and got to bed about midnight local time.

Saturday, 5 February: After a continental breakfast on the fourth floor, we asked the valet to get our car and then tried to find the Hawaii Visitors Bureau. But, being Saturday, it was closed! Allan had sold us only two nights in this hotel and the first night was already over. If we wanted to last nine months on the road, we had to find cheaper lodging fast, not only here, but everywhere we went.

We looked in our Hawaii handbook and found a listing billing itself as Bed and Breakfast Honolulu Statewide. It looked interesting so we called the owner, Marylee Bridges, and agreed to meet at her office in her home. We found her place north of Honolulu off the Pali Highway. Anne managed to get down the stairs into the house on her crutches. It was a huge, rambling house with room after room of offices, bedrooms (for paying guests) and resting areas for various pets (mostly dogs). Marylee was very friendly, in her fifties and appeared to be an islander. She knew her business.

Her husband, Gene, was equally interesting. Born in mainland USA, he was a former Unitarian minister and now a lawyer. He said, I used to marry people as a minister but now divorce them as a lawyer. Both of them were chain smokers, so we stayed out of range.

Marylee agreed to help us plan our entire stay. She said she would not only help find us lodging on Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu islands, but she would line up rental cars and flights between the islands—one stop shopping! She smiled. I’ve stayed at every one of these B&Bs myself.

Later, we visited the beautiful Pali lookout as per Gene’s recommendation, and stopped in his favorite restaurant for lunch, the Hungry Lion on nearby School Road. We ordered two Polynesian dishes, our first. They turned out to be very delicious and very huge!

Later that night, we visited the annual Night in Chinatown celebration held in honor of Chinese New Year (coming up on 10 February). There were huge crowds and we were lucky to find a good parking spot as Anne was on crutches and could not walk far. I bought a Year of the Dog T-shirt. We shared a Vietnamese plate in the Maunakea Market Place.

Sunday, 6 February: We checked out of the hotel at 5:00 A.M. so we could arrive at the Arizona Memorial Visitor Center at Pearl Harbor ahead of the crowds at 7:00 A.M. On this sunny Sunday morning, I couldn’t help thinking that it was a morning just like this over fifty-two years ago that the Japanese attack fleet launched wave after wave of fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes in an unprecedented surprise attack on the Pacific Fleet as part of a grand strategy of conquest in the Western Pacific.

It was a moving experience, watching the twenty-minute film on the Pearl Harbor attack, and then taking the navy shuttle boat out to the memorial. Underneath the memorial is the resting place of many of the USS Arizona’s 1,177 crewmen who lost their lives on that day of infamy, 7 December 1941. The memorial has come to commemorate all military personnel killed in the Pearl Harbor attack.

Navy to the rescue! Seaman wheels Anne onto shuttle boat destined for the Pearl Harbor Memorial.

I shall always remember Seaman Klinginsmith who treated Anne (in her wheelchair) with real kindness and humor. He cheerfully wheeled her on and off the shuttle boat as if it was second nature to him and wouldn’t let me lift a finger. I later filled out a comment sheet on him in the visitor center and asked that it be forwarded to the head navy-man at Pearl Harbor.

From there, we attended services at the historic Kawaiahao Church, the oldest church in Hawaii, founded in 1820 by the original missionaries. King Kamehameha III spoke here and even King Liholiho married Queen Emma here, who bore the last child born to a Hawaiian monarch.

It is a Congregational church sometimes called the Westminster Abbey of Hawaii. The service was sung and spoken in both Hawaiian and English. The ushers were men in white jackets and women in white dresses. Both had bare feet. The choir was inspiring and angelic. We stayed for lunch afterwards, enjoying fellowship with fellow Christians and travelers.

After church, we drove again to the Bridges’ home to pick up the finalized travel vouchers for eighteen nights in B&Bs, air transportation to Maui, Hawaii and back to Oahu, and rental cars on Maui and Hawaii.

It was becoming increasingly apparent that Anne needed more than crutches to get around. Her foot was still inflamed and it was very difficult for her to go more than fifty feet on crutches. How we wished we had brought our wheelchair! We mentioned it to Gene and he said, We may still have the old wheelchair my mother used when she was alive. Let me look for it. Not only did he find it, he loaned it to Anne! We offered to buy it but he said he might need it himself. We could return it when we came back to Honolulu from the Big Island (Hawaii).

We then drove to our nearby B&B. It was on Kaola Place, a cul-de-sac overlooking Honolulu nearly at the top of the steep, winding Pacific Heights Road. What a beautiful place it was and what a marvelous view! Anne got down the short flight of stairs O.K. and marveled at the indoor Japanese garden. You could hear the birds here. You could feel the breeze. These are things you could not do in a hotel! We were given a