Adaptive travel: motorhomes and wheelchairs

Monday, June 8th, 2009 | Accessible Travel, Equipment

Our trip to Seward was a lot of fun. My only sibling, my brother, and his wife live in Seward and we don’t get to see each other as often as we would like, so it’s always a treat when we get together. My children adore their Uncle Ron and Aunt Janine and we don’t act too serious when we get to spend time together.

The ramps worked quite well and we are pleased that we seem to be on to a good solution to our travel issues with Quincy. But we have some kinks to work out which isn’t a surprise. There are always kinks when developing a new system. We knew the weight of the ramps was probably going to be an issue. It’s not that Rob and I can’t muscle them around (for a small woman I have an impressive amount of strength in my back and arms from lifting Quincy all these years) but moving them something we cannot do quickly. That is a problem when you are camping and it may be cold or wet or, even worse, buggy. When the ramps are in place, the door and the screen must remain open and so the rig quickly loses all it’s heat and can fill with mosquitoes. A lighter, more nimble, ramp that could be moved quickly in and out of place would really help cut down on this issue.

Also, we initially tested the ramps in our very level driveway, but when we camp our sites are rarely level. We had to raise one side of the motorhome substantially in order to be level, so the ramp was much steeper than we expected. But with a person at both the front and back it was still quite easy and safe to maneuver up and down. However, if Rob or I are alone with Quincy in the motorhome we would need to be sure we were on as level as spot as possible so the ramps aren’t too steep for one person to manage alone.

Rob found some lightweight aluminum ramps online that only weighed 8 pounds and look like a perfect solution to our problem. Only issue is getting them shipped to us. Unfortunately, if you live in Alaska (and probably Hawaii and Guam) most companies freak out when it comes to shipping anything of an unusual size. So, we will have to help the company understand that we are a part of the United States and we get Postal service as well as UPS and FedEx deliveries. We’ve been through this conversation about a million times and I don’t expect it to be a hurdle that we cannot overcome.

My intent is to put up some pictures of our present ramp system as well as whatever modified option we come up with. I am traveling for a week and do not have access to my photo files, but promise to do so when I get home.

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