Travelling by Road, Rail, Sea, Air (And Wheelchair) in North America

By Mike Fox

This story is an adventure experienced by Mike and his disabled wife, Sylvia. Sylvia, who has Parkinsons disease, made the journey with the aid of a wheelchair across North America for four weeks in September and October 2016. They reacquainted themselves with old friends and made new ones. They experienced a succession of interesting and, in some cases, amusing encounters, along with one instance that verged on the miraculous.

Mike and Sylvia encountered an interesting array of facts, figures, and opinions from a wide stratum of North American society, and Mike comments on a few of his own personal reflections on the people and places he came across. They explored major cities and rural communities, including an Amish community in Indiana, and areas of pristine wilderness. They also took a cruise to Alaska, travelled on the Rocky Mountaineer Express train, and visited the Niagara Falls and the Quebec World Heritage Site.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781546282969

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2017 Mike Fox. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/26/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5462-8297-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-8296-9 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Travelling by Road, Rail, Sea, Air (and Wheelchair) in North America

September to October 2016

Mike Fox

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Contents

Preface

Thursday, 8 September

The Perfect Start

Friday, 9 September

The Longest Day

Saturday, 10 September

Our Friends in Chicago

Sunday, 11 September

Remembering 9/11

Monday, 12 September

Meeting the Amish

Tuesday, 13 September

Winona Lake

Wednesday, 14 September

The Railway Museum

Thursday, 15 September

New Paris to Vancouver

Friday, 16 September

Touring Vancouver and the Recovery of the Missing Brownie

Saturday, 17 September

Our Maiden Cruise

Sunday, 18 September

Sailing in the Pacific

Monday, 19 September

Passage to Juneau

Tuesday, 20 September

The Yukon, Huskies, and a Scary Railway

Wednesday, 21 September

Glacier Bay

Thursday, 22 September

Crabbing at Ketchikan

Friday, 23 September

The Inside Passage

Saturday, 24 September

A Day in Vancouver

Sunday, 25 September

Butchart Gardens

Monday, 26 September

The Rocky Mountaineer (Part 1)

Tuesday, 27 September

The Rocky Mountaineer (Part 2)

Wednesday, 28 September

Crossing over to the East of Canada

Thursday, 29 September

Tour of Toronto

Friday, 30 September

Niagara Falls

Saturday, 1 October

The Night Train to Montreal

Sunday, 2 October

Touring Montreal

Monday, 3 October

Quebec

Tuesday, 4 October

Strolling through Montreal

Wednesday, 5 October

Homeward Bound

Thursday, 6 October

Back to Reality

Epilogue

Preface

The planning of this holiday got out of hand; it started life as a two-day train ride through the Rockies, partly to satisfy my passion for rail travel and see beautiful places. However, my wife, Sylvia, fell for some gentle persuasion from our travel agent to sign up for a cruise from Vancouver to Alaska (I think the prospect of seeing whales did it). And in truth, it didn’t need much to persuade me either.

The holiday was also an opportunity to meet up with some good friends in Indiana whom we had known in Manchester, United Kingdom, when we were all in our twenties and whom we have been corresponding with ever since. Then someone at church said they had a daughter in Chicago who would love to see us. When we added on the Niagara Falls trip and a visit to the World Heritage site at Quebec, our little getaway had transmogrified into an adventure of close on four weeks, involving road, rail, sea, and air travel (not to mention the wheelchair) – hence, the convoluted title of the book.

The challenges for us, as senior citizens dating from the baby boom era, revolved round whether Sylvia – who needs a wheelchair for some of the time when she is out and about, and as someone with Parkinson’s disease who needs constant medication and finds early mornings challenging – could cope with four weeks on the road. She was going to have to take leave of her comfort zone on several occasions. But we both love travelling and meeting people, and the lure of an exciting holiday in North America proved irresistible to us. We encountered almost nothing but fun, friendship and helpful people, especially in helping Sylvia gain access or overcoming physical obstacles. We were also saved from a tricky situation by a generous nun in Union Station, Toronto, but more of that later.

We left the New World after four weeks in which we found new friendships and cemented established ties. If I have inspired anyone, including people with disabilities, to travel a bit more adventurously than hitherto, then my account of our little adventure will have succeeded.

Thursday, 8 September

The Perfect Start

The holiday (perhaps of a lifetime) gets off to a perfect start. The weather is perfect as our train to London runs along the sea wall between Teignmouth and Dawlish, a railway line that has been swept away by rough seas in the recent past and that continues to be expensive to maintain in shipshape fashion. There is a flotilla of white-sailed boats off Exmouth, and the light is magical, as the water reflects the sun’s rays. We will be going on some great train journeys on the other side of the Atlantic, but this view, less than an hour into our holiday, is going to be hard to beat anywhere.

We are travelling first class. This gives us plenty of space, including legroom, and attentive stewards, but the automatic tap in the loo needs a bit of persuading to work properly. After several coffees and water over a two and a half-hour journey, our game with the tap becomes a recurring experience.

At Paddington Station, a friendly senior Great Western Railway official arranges assistance for us boarding the Heathrow Express. We are feeling a little like royalty at this point. The official tells me he is originally from Nigeria but says that, to his shame, he has forgotten his native tongue, Yoruba, which has been replaced by English with a London accent; successful assimilation into a new culture, I guess.

There has been an incident on the line out of Paddington, which may or not be the same as the signal problems we are informed about via the station’s loudspeakers. There is a scene of general chaos. This chaos remains with us as the Heathrow Express eventually crawls away from Paddington at a snail’s pace. It’s a long way walking and pushing Sylvia’s wheelchair from the Heathrow Express to the bus station, where the hotel buses collect passengers.

We have worked out a system for moving the bags and the wheelchair, which my wife, Sylvia is going to need for large sections of our journey; she has Parkinson’s disease, which can affect her movement and general mobility, especially when her drugs regime is disturbed and sometimes for what seems like no logical reason at all. Her condition was a key factor in her decision to retire from teaching a little bit early a few years ago, although she is still a dab hand with choirs and continues to play the keyboard in church services. For someone who has been fit and active all her life, the onset of Parkinson’s has been a big challenge. But it’s one she rises to in a positive way, even at the diminutive height of just under five feet.

Anyway, back to the wheelchair. Basically, the large case couples onto one of the handlebars of the wheelchair and trundles along the ground, with the small case lying on Sylvia’s lap, whilst my rucksack goes over my shoulders and Sylvia’s rucksack fits nicely onto the rear handlebars of the wheelchair. The theory is good. It works well at home in our living room, but it needs to be put to the test. It’s a bit like driving a road train. Reversing out of lifts is quite challenging.

Sylvia is in need of some of the hotel’s facilities pretty quickly, so we cut the Gordian knot and hire a taxi to the Novotel, where we are booked in for the night. The hotel is reasonably friendly but not cheap. However, it is situated close to Heathrow Airport, which is what matters. It’s early evening, and we decide not to venture out to eat; instead, we find an eatery within the hotel. Our hotel room is okay, and we crash out quite early, with the prospect of a long flight tomorrow.

Friday, 9 September

The Longest Day

I’m awake by 6:30 a.m. The first challenge of the day is the shower, which has a mind of its own with a penchant for spewing out cold water as soon as your back is turned (literally). Our son David calls me on my mobile at eight. As it happens, he is driving past Heathrow Airport on his way to a job in Brentford; it’s a small world. A Romanian waitress, Corina, serves us at breakfast. She is friendly and chatty and tells us about herself. I ask her if she wishes to return to her home country. No, she says, I enjoy life over here and I am very happy living in the UK.

Outside the hotel, I get chatting to a British guy who works in the music recording industry in the United States, which he says takes him all over America. He clearly loves his job, and he says he’s home to visit his mother in London. I impress myself by showing him how to process his ticket for the airport bus; technical savvy is not the greatest card in my locker.

The bus drops us off at Terminal