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Showing posts with the label Ground Zero

Meeting Butler County, Ohio

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I was invited to spend a long weekend in Butler County, Ohio, just after they became Wheel The World certified for accessibility. The tourism board wanted me to write about how wheelchair accessible the region is. I hadn’t been there before, and it sounded like an interesting area, so I made plans to go. My trip to Butler County turned out to be one of my most unusual adventures, with new experiences, and a lot of donuts!   I brought Teddy and my friend, Heather, along for the ride, about three and a half hours from home. We had a nice welcome basket waiting for us at the hotel. Our home base was the Marriott Cincinnati North in Westerville. I was happy at the start with a flat entrance and automatic doors. They didn’t have any accessible rooms, so we had two connecting rooms. Teddy loved going back and forth between the two rooms. Mine had plenty of space for me to wheel around, a well-equipped desk area I could reach, and a large bathroom with a shower chair. The handheld was...

The Day Travel – and Life – Changed

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It’s hard to believe 10 years have passed since that horrible day. I was living on Long Island at that time in an area deeply touched by the effects of September 11, 2001. Many of my neighbors worked in Manhattan, some in and around the World Trade Center. I spent the day with one close friend whose husband worked in Tower Two. We waited for hours to hear from him and, though he did make it back unharmed, many in his office did not. In addition to the people I knew who worked at the World Trade Center, there many New York City Firefighters who live on Long Island. I knew some of those who went into the building burning, collapsing building to help survivors, and search for others. There was one husband and wife who both worked at Ground Zero, not able to let their five children know where they were. At the same time I worried about the adults I knew stuck in New York City, there were school children – one of which was mine – sitting in classrooms down the block. They didn’...