Fly the "Friendly Skies" again with faith

In 1966 United Airlines coined the term "Fly the Friendly Skies." Throughout my childhood, my parents and I did just that, wracking up miles like a rain gauge in Oregon, with never a worry about service or smiles.

But as I started to travel with Craig after 2001, my view of the Friendly Skies changed as dramatically as the company's financial situation. We started to notice drastic differences between the airline companies and their employees, and began picking and choosing our flights no longer based on price, but on pleasant experience. After many of Craig's wheelchair parts and other mobility devices suffered extreme damages from many companies, often without apology, and also after many unpleasant experiences with the staff and lack of knowledge of Craig's rights, we of course had our favorites to fly. Surely from our previous posts here, you can guess who those were.

And for almost five years we simply didn't fly United for all of these reasons.

But this past June, we had no choice but to get back on the horse. United is the only service out of the Steamboat/Hayden airport in the summer, and our schedule didn't allow us to fly out of Denver this time.

So we reached out to one of United's top supervisors, explaining our fears, and hoped that this trip would be different.

We were more than pleasantly surprised. I don't remember United employees ever being so pleasant, helpful, accommodating, and even downright chipper.

Something drastic has changed in United Airlines' infrastructure, and frankly I don't need an explanation. I am thrilled to say that this company now handles customers with disabilities and their equipment with care from start to finish.

The highlights:

• The staff knew we were coming, and knew we needed assistance.
  
• They also didn't balk at the medical equipment free-baggage allowance for his toilet seat.
  
• The flight crew knew we wanted Craig's wheelchair on board, and made every effort (when possible) to make this happen (both DEN-IAD flights) and knew it was in his FAA rights to do so.
  
• Everyone greeted us with a smile.
  
• No one ignored us. (Really, that's a highlight!)
• The pilot even introduced himself. When does that EVER happen?
• None of Craig's mobility equipment was damaged.
  

While I would like to assume this would be the standard treatment without the big red flag warning we sent out (an email that seemed to make it all around the company, as many of the supervising staff helping us mentioned it- hopefully it was well written!), they won us over nonetheless.

Of course we returned the favor with Life is Good stickers for everyone, and now I'm proud to say that this company is joining team with one of our favorites (Continental) at the end of the year.

I do hope that Continental Airline's Disability Advisory Board is retained through the big merger however- despite the positive message this post, there's still a lot of work to be done on all fronts in the airlines, but we see progress, and progress is always good.

But we will be flying with United again someday soon, I guarantee it. We hope you give them a shot too.

Flyfishing camp with Steamboat Flyfisher

An awesome two days with Steamboat Flyfisher, great weather, the fish were biting, and BBQ was devoured. Thanks to the guides, Tim and Cho, and the beautiful Yampa River, what an awesome day!

Denver's Camp Discovery 2nd Annual Camp for Challenged Athletes is just one month away!

The second annual Camp Discovery, July 15-17th, is a Challenged Athletes Foundation Sports Camp for women in wheelchairs that is directed and founded by Denver’s Trish Downing, a spokesperson for Challenged Athletes Foundation and competitive athlete.

Camp Discovery’s two and a half day program at the Curtis Hotel in downtown Denver, Colorado. Activities include horseback riding, swimming, handcycling, swimming and a tour of an accessible home.

”I wanted a group of women who could, by sharing, begin to feel stronger, bolder and braver in their lives, not just vent to each other or create a pity party. In my mind, that meant adventure and excitement; opportunities to expand and challenge,” shares Downing.

After a car hit Downing while she rode her bike in Golden, paralyzing her from the waist down, she’s adapted her athleticism to include a wheelchair. Sports give Downing joy; now she’s sharing that with others.

Downing recounts, “I knew wheelchair athletes before I ever got hurt. I was a tandem pilot for a blind cyclist. I totally hung out with all these people and I started working with disabled athletes. When I got hurt, those people were calling me up and directing me – what hand cycle to get, what camp to do. But, most people don’t have that. Especially women.”

Camp Discovery is open to any woman in a wheelchair because of a spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, polio, or any other disease requiring the use of a wheelchair.

To sign up for this camp or to learn more about it, CONTACT Melissa Taylor at meltay@comcast.net 303-564-7980 or Trish Downing at ladyterp_td@hotmail.com, http://www.trishdowning.com

Construction in Steamboat means better access downtown

Since mid-April Steamboat Springs' downtown section of CO Hwy 40 has been under construction in a $4.5million project to repave the 10-block stretch with a more durable surface - concrete. Due to a wetter spring than average, the project started slow and made for a tough spring, but now that summer has hit the vacation resort town with thousands of tourists, the construction traffic, which at times can be backed up for over an hour to go three miles, has made most locals frustrated at best.

But where most see a nuisance to their daily routine, Steamboat visitors and locals who use mobility devices will (eventually) appreciate the new downtown in ways most won't even notice.

Scott Construction is not just repaving the five lanes with concrete, on many blocks they have ripped up 100 feet of connecting side streets as well to improve the crosswalks with a red concrete cross walk and wider, smoother curb-cut transitions.

In mountain towns like Steamboat, the curbs take the brunt of the winter plows and have needed an overhaul for many years. Many curbs were crumbled and on some blocks they were nearly too small for a wheelchair or non existent at all. Several streets didn't have striped cross walks, although tourists and locals alike disregarded this and crossed against fast, oncoming traffic; nor did these streets have stop lights.

The improvements have also included several new traffic lights (such as at 11th), some with turn-lane signals to help keep traffic from backing up behind cars turning left across traffic. But many new crosswalks and crossing signals have been added to help smooth the downtown foot traffic as well.

All these new additions mean better accessibility for wheelchairs, strollers, and slow walkers through downtown, and will prove to freshen up the look of the downtown as well.

Although Scott Construction was under contract to finish the job by June 30th, the uncooperative spring weather has made sure that Steamboat will be seeing more of this crew's equipment in the fall months as well, much to Steamboat's chagrin.

Las Vegas, still accessible after all these years

You'd think more towns would want to be like Las Vegas. For decades Vegas has cornered the market on accessible travel because they know better. Design for everyone, and everyone will come, with their money. Why any tourism center would exclude any particular niche simply by not catering to their needs is beyond us, and beyond Vegas as well.

The City of Sin doesn't brag about its access openly, and in truth, some of its city recreation funding has recently been cut, so where golfing used to be a widely accessible option for recreation in town, this is unfortunately no longer the case. We spent weeks trying to figure out why their many accessible golf carts could only be used at municipal courses, and apparently the budget also affected customer relations on the subject. Long story short, we brought clubs for nothing.

But there are plenty of other accessible features of Las Vegas to highlight, and as always, we should start with the strip, which is constantly rejuvenated and therefore always expanding on its access thanks to the ADA.

The Wynn chain of hotels offers the Surehands lifts systems in several of the rooms at each hotel (Bellagio, Encore, MGM, Mirage, Treasure Island, and Wynn), making independence a reality. But if you don't need the lift system, all of the hotels in Veags, even the older ones, are accessible and most have some great accessibility features like roll-in showers.

We stayed at the Cancun Resort about 2 miles south of the strip for some peace and pool lounging, and were pleased to find a roll-in shower with a folding bench, ramps to all areas, accessible hot tubs, bars, and even an elevator to the top floor of waterslide, housed in an Aztec ruin at the pool.

In addition to finding accessible lodging bountiful, Vegas touts that every restaurant is accessible, and we found the shows, sites, transportation and side trips to be as well.

We squeezed in a show at KA, a unique Cirque du Soleil show at the MGM, one of the more memorable and unique venues we've seen, grand enough to make its way into a Top 5 Accessible Venues article to come in the near future. The best feature at this venue are the plush office-chair seat on wheels in the center-of-the-house ADA section, that slide out for easy transfer or to make room for your own chair, which just adds to the magic of this amazingly acrobatic show on the spinning, tilting, smoking stage.

We explored several other theaters at the main casino resorts along the strip, and where there were stairs, there was always an elevator, and in some cases, even an escalator.

At the the top of the Paris's Eiffel Tower is an accessible restaurant with amazing views of the city.

If you're into amusement rides, Las Vegas has plenty of them. The Manhattan Express at the New York New York, the five rides at the Adventuredome at the Circus Circus, and the three rides at the Stratosphere Hotel are all accessible, however some of them do have specific requirements such as at the NYNY riders need at least one lower limb to engage the safety bar over the lap, and must be able to sit up on their own to engage the upper shoulder straps. But all of them have elevators, ramps, or level entries to their rides.

If walking the length of the strip, or even part of its ever-expanding length, is a barrier for you, renting scooters is a recommendation as there are many companies in Las Vegas to look to. Scootaround is one of our favorites for their excelling customer service and reliability, but there are nine other companies offering rentals in town as well.

All in all we've found Las Vegas quite welcoming, whether you're there to win some money or just take in the shows, Vegas is still accessible after all these year.