Who We Are
To better understand the way we travel, it is helpful to know something about us and our situation. We are Jim and Leslie and we live in a small community behind the mountain range west of Salt Lake City. Our three daughters are grown now – one with a family of her own and the other with a hubby prepping for graduate school.
Our daughter who has a disability, Jamie, will keep us from ever becoming empty nesters. But we enjoy having her with us because she makes our life interesting!
She LOVES to travel more than anyone I know. Every day, she brings us the car keys or a shoe, signaling that it is time to go somewhere – anywhere, but home.
More about our Daughter and Wheelchair Traveling Companion, Jamie
It might be helpful if you have some background information on our daughter, Jamie. By knowing what she is like, you will gain an understanding of what we do in our travel and why we do it. This will allow you to better assess your own travel situation and how our destination might play out for you.
Here are some of Jamie’s characteristics and physical abilities:
- Quite small. At 4 ½ feet and just over 100 pounds, she is more the size of a large child.
- Able to walk. She can hoof it for short distances or even up/down a flight of stairs, but is is slow going.
- Uses diapers for travel. Although she is potty trained at home and only uses diapers overnight, we use them for her 24/7 on vacations – it is just easier that way.
- Completely nonverbal. This does not mean in any way that she cannot make her needs known. Surprisingly, she learned to spell before kindergarten and is proficient at using a keyboard. She uses a group of iPads and iPods loaded with Proloquo2go to allow her to communicate.
- Is autisic-like. If you did not know better, you would think she is autistic since a lot of her behaviors point in that direction.
As you can see, she is not shy about asking for what she wants. Best we plan a vacation soon!