Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Bahamas 2012, #7: Taking the iBot to the Bahamas

I put together a short video showing how the iBot performed in the Bahamas. Check back in the coming days for my last two posts about our wonderful vacation. Enjoy.



Click for next post: Bahamas 2012, #8: Getting Home

Click for previous post: Bahamas 2012, #6: More Stuff We Did

Here are my other iBot videos:

Taking the iBot to the Beach


Taking the iBot to Two Lights State Park


Taking the iBot to Bar Harbor


Taking the iBot to Bug Light


Taking the iBot to Crotched Mountain

9 comments:

  1. This is so beautiful, and then I ruined it for myself by accidentally playing two videos at once. Both soundtracks play simutaneously (Google Chrome, PC). So then, naturally, I played more than two!

    That is awful; don't do it.

    But I went back and behaved the second time through. Thanks for taking me!!!

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  2. Mitch
    Thanks for taking us on this marvelous vacation. It is inspiring to watch, listen and learn from you! I love to travel and don't want this ?&$@?,& disease to stop me from doing what I love!
    You have so many good words to live by as well as not letting the dips destroy the ups!
    Gretchen

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  3. Nice! The iBOT truly is a miraculous device. Glad to see you using it to enrich your life. It's sad that Medicare doesn't recognize it as "medically necessary".

    Charlie

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  4. imascatterbrain,

    I'm glad you enjoyed the video(s). Forgive me for what I am about to write, but I find it irresistible. I must say, based on your comment, you have chosen a most appropriate online name :-)

    Gretchen,

    I'm glad you are enjoying traveling vicariously through me. I've had to give up a lot of things because of MS. I do things until I can't do them anymore, and then I try not to look back with regret, but that is difficult.

    Charlie,

    And in this budget-cutting environment, I don't see any hope of Medicare changing their mind. Apparently, it is only medically necessary for us to go from bathroom to bedroom to the kitchen, not from home to beach to mountain top. Bull shit!

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  5. Very cool video. The only thing left that I need to know is how you dealt with the hotel room bathroom w/no grab bars. Bathrooms are the biggest obstacle.

    Oh and you left out one thing in your reply to Charlie. It's not medically necessary to have ongoing physical therapy either, so you can go from bathroom to bedroom to kitchen.

    Michelle

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  6. Hey Mitch, thanks for such a detailed account of your adventures in the Bahamas. Sounds like you guys had a great time, despite some early difficulties. The problem with wheelchair accessible rooms is exasperating, even here in the states, and your experience confirms what I suspected about such rooms where the ADA laws don't apply.

    Enjoy the video very much. I love the fact that the couple descending the stairs to the beach while you were at sending them seems to pay no attention whatsoever to the fact that a guy climbing the stairs in and incredible stairclimbing robot. I guess some folks have seen just about everything…

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  7. Michelle,

    Good point about physical therapy.

    Regarding the toilet, I'm a little shy about getting into too much bathroom detail in my blog posts, but these are important issues for disabled folks, so I'll elaborate a bit more here in the comments section.

    One of the many advantages of being a man is that I don't have to sit on the toilet to empty my bladder. I simply empty it into a container while sitting in my wheelchair, and then empty the container into the toilet.

    Regarding bowel movements, I am fortunate to be quite regular, and I was able to find public toilets at the resort that did have grab bars the couple of times that I needed them during the week. If you're a woman, and/or irregular, an inaccessible hotel room toilet would be a much bigger deal.

    Wheelchair Kamikaze,

    I'm glad you're enjoying my disabled travel posts. I'm having a good time recounting my vacation here at my blog.

    In one of my earlier takes of the video I had commented on how some of the "extras" in the video were more interested in not being delayed by my activity than they were in observing it. But that ended up on my editing room floor, if you will. I'm with you, if I was a healthy person I would be amazed by someone climbing stairs in a wheelchair, and would have stopped to observe and then even probably ask a bunch of questions. I mean, they were at an all-inclusive Caribbean resort. What were they hurrying about anyway?

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  8. My husband and I were at Sandals the same time you and your group were. It was very inspiring to see you and your incredible machine. Our whole group was quite impressed with you and your family. I am truely enjoying your blog, it blesses me with a different view of the world around me. I am truely thankful for that.

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  9. Anonymous, I'm glad you enjoy the blog, and I'm intrigued. Who are you? I have a guess. Email me at email@enjoyingtheride.com

    Mitch

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