Like everyone, we are going stir-crazy with covid times. We have been extremely careful, especially with me having ME/CFS (high risk), so we wanted travel that would be as safe as possible. We decided an RV trip is fairly safe as long as we mostly stick to nature, wear masks, sanitize, etc. (and my husband and I are now fully vaccinated).
We were lucky enough to find an accessible RV to rent via Outdoorsy. People rent their personal RVs through the site and this person happened to retrofit his for a wheelchair. It has a “super arm” that supports at least 500lbs, but I discovered that while the door was big enough for my large power chair, and the super arm would take the weight, the opening was made smaller because the arm is in the way and it doesn’t fit. This validated my “be paranoid, keep double checking everything” instincts.
I decided to bite the bullet and finally got a foldable power wheelchair (the Falcon) as a backup chair. There are some situations where the big chair just doesn’t work and the smaller, foldable one will (like when we visit my family in New Hampshire). The Falcon is one of the rare foldable power chairs that reclines and you can add a headrest and raisable foot rests, and it will fit in the RV just fine.
Our plan is to go San Francisco > Bartow > Grand Canyon > Bryce Canyon > Moab (and Arches National Park) > Santa Fe (via Los Altos)> Holbrook (petrified forest) > Mojave Desert (via Oatman)> SF
I made the RV park reservations in mid February during covid times (so theoretically less crowded) and I got the very last spot in May on the very last available night for months at the Trailer Village RV park at the Grand Canyon visitor center. Reservations at Moab Canyonlands RV park were nearly as close. So… book way ahead for those if you plan to go! I had no trouble with booking or changing booking anywhere else.
I’ll be posting each area as I go and commenting on how the Falcon handles. I also intend to try out the superarm to see and show how it works since it is the least expensive way to retrofit an existing vehicle for wheelchairs.
My Wandering Wheels 