Rolling with Sarah

Wow what a trip to Calgary! I will start off with the plane ride out. We arrived at the airport just after 5:00pm for our 6:55pm flight. We flew with Porter Airlines because it was the only direct flight to Calgary that day. If you think layovers and rushing to get your connection is hard, try doing it when you are the last off the plane and the first on the next. Unfortunately because I require assistance, we were not able to get my boarding pass ahead of time and had to go to the Porter desk, but once we did we got my ticket no problem. We breezed through security.

When it was time to board, I was the first one on the plane. My mom (who came as my caregiver) helped me transfer into the aisle chair. This is a very small chair that they use to bring you down the aisle of the plane to your seats. The aisle is just too narrow for any actual wheelchair to possibly fit. From there, we disassembled my chair. The seat, back and legs came with us and were stored over our heads as carry on, but the frame of the chair was folded up, tagged, and brought down below. As soon as we were seated the flight attendants came to ask what they could do to make our flight easier. Very good customer service.

The flight itself was good, but it was just bad timing. We missed out on Game 7 of the World Series! We caught bits and pieces but everyone on the plane was fighting for the same Wi-Fi so streaming wasn’t exactly consistent.

We unloaded the same way we loaded, except backwards. This meaning I was the last to exit the plane. They brought me out of the plane and I was transferred back into my wheelchair. Easy peasy. Not going to lie, I was a little concerned the whole flight that the frame would get lost or broken, but luckily I was proven wrong.

We got in the cab just in time to hear “The Dodgers win the World Series!” over the radio. Talk about heartbreaking! Other than that our cab ride was nice. About 20-30 minutes from the airport to our hotel. It was pretty late when we landed so we opted to go for a regular cab over waiting for an accessible one. I am light enough that my mom could lift me into the backseat and my chair folded up in the trunk.

And just like that, our journey had begun! #ccrc