Vacation Choices

This past month our family went on a vacation to upstate New York and Canada. Dave and I decided to take some time out of our regular itinerary to see parts of New York we hadn’t seen before.

Before traveling, we learned of a place called Watkins Glen State Park. The literature said “Watkins Glen takes one into an ethereal world of beauty and mystic including 19 waterfalls”. I really wanted to experience this place. Dave did too. The catch – over 800 stone steps on the mile and a half one-way non-wheelchair accessible trail. Could I do it? Probably. But our vacation was also after the most recent patient meeting and my feet were very sore. More importantly, my two boys’ feet were extremely sore, blistering and weeping. Dave and I decided to wait until we got to New York and talked to people who had been to Watkins Glen before making a decision about going there.

There was another state park in upstate New York on the way to our next destination - Letchworth State Park.  It was also supposed to be beautiful, but in a more grand, majestic way. We talked to someone who had been to both parks. Both were supposed to be beautiful, but the person said if we had a hard time walking, Letchworth Park would be the better choice. It was Dave who made the final choice about which place we should experience. He knows his PC family well.

Though Dave has never once complained, I am aware (probably more than Dave is) of things he misses out because he’s married to me. Dave loves nature and beautiful things in the outdoors. Yes, I know there are many things we can experience together without a lot of walking, but still I worry that he doesn’t get to do and see all he could if he had a “walking wife.”  That said - if Dave read this, he would roll his eyes.  He doesn’t seem to mind nearly as much as I do.

In the end, we loved going to Letchworth Park. We entered the park at a side entrance in order to see the lower waterfalls. We needed to walk an easy trail on soft dirt.  It was about a half mile one way and it was worth it. With the fall leaves changing colors, the views were stunning. We felt like we were in another world and because it was raining softly, we were the only ones on the trail.

Once we arrived at a main entrance of Letchworth, however, we got some bad advice at the ranger’s station when entering the park and ended up walking down many flights of stone steps to get to a place where we could see another beautiful waterfall.  It was painful and I kept trying to weigh whether or not it was worth it. The funny thing is had we driven down the road just a little bit more, we would have avoided that trail altogether and still had seen the same views.  After that, we stuck to driving only to places in the park.

I laughed and said we’d probably walked just as much had we gone to Watkins Glen. But it’s so hard to know when you’ve never been somewhere before, even when you do ask people for advice because it’s hard for those who share that advice to really understand what you can and cannot do. 

All in all it was a wonderful experience and we saw gorgeous scenes at Letchworth State Park. I was particularly happy Dave enjoyed it so much. In fact, a few times, he went further on down some trails on his own and I was glad.  Even though he says he doesn’t mind, I don’t want Dave to miss out on anything. I’d like to think nothing can stop us, even having PC. But the bottom line is weighing in on the pain is a factor every time we make choices on a vacation.