The whole thing had been planned, re-planned, measured and ascertained. Honestly, there was nothing that could go wrong. So, by the time we had sat in the lounge, headed for the gate and then waited outside the aircraft, well, I was getting relaxed. Finally. After all, this had taken months of planning. The process had exhausted me. And Jane. And finally there we were. So, the usual ensued. A couple of guys wrestled me into an aisle chair, one of those very narrow things that wedge a passenger down the narrow passage to a seat. And there it was, my seat. And there was my problem. Or our problem. And it was a problem that I could not have foreseen. Partly because the airline either obscured it or forgot about it or couldn’t be bothered. But there it was. And I was bothered quite a bit.

Business class. It is a wonderful thing that I have attained whatever it takes in life to sit in a wider seat on a longer flight. I mean it is a splendid thing. And I give thanks. Honestly, I do. Go, Hashem. You are abundant. 

However, there is still this problem. Which is that to get from the aisle to the seat I had selected, and selected very carefully based on the airline seat map…requires squeezing through a very narrow, slanted entrance. It takes some fancy footwork to get into the seat and around the partition that encloses it in a sort of airline womb. And the two guys who have gotten me into the aisle chair are now prepared to get me out of it, and well, they are not much help. I am not much help either. In fact, I am sort of panicking. Because I cannot see how this can be done.

Never mind the larger problem. And that is how can any airplane be expected to takeoff with enough fuel to fly for almost 18 hours from San Francisco nonstop to Singapore? But never mind that. There is a much smaller, and apparently more insurmountable problem, right here. And that involves the fancy footwork and my neuromuscular failings in that department. My feet are not fancy. They are barely feet.

I can head down a bleak mental road, when I want to. And I am doing that now. And fortunately, the flight attendants aren’t. One points out that by just switching seats, this problem can be solved. And this happens. One passenger agrees to move one seat forward. And that seat has an open entrance to the aisle. Problem solved.

Thus, disabled travel. So many surprises. And in the spirit of adventure, surprises are generally wonderful. But I am old. And not so bold. To break the mold. And so, behold. Behold the flowers. Behold Carrizo Plain. 

That other plane is two months behind us. We have come and gone to southeast Asia and Australia. And now we have other geographical fish to fry. And this one, a lovely fish at that, is right behind San Luis Obispo. 

Well not “right behind,” more like an hour and a half east. Now to be frank, this is more or less inconceivable. Because Californians know that there are essentially two geographic options. You either head south to Los Angeles down the coast or via the San Joaquin valley. Or you don’t. The notion that you would head inland across the coastal range, well, it just doesn’t happen does it? Yet there’s no particular reason why not. 

So why not spend the night in San Luis Obispo? And I don’t mean the freeway aspect of this midpoint along the coastal route. I mean the actual downtown. And, yes, San Luis Obispo has one. And charming doesn’t do it justice. It is a fine town. A college town, by the way. And there is a century-old hotel in the center, all brick and history. And that is where we stay. Because one room, after all, has a roll-in wheelchair shower. And not only that, the hotel has a splendid restaurant. It’s all cheery and cozy, and I don’t think too much about the room’s obvious limitations until the next morning. When it becomes apparent that although one can roll a wheelchair directly into the shower, there is not a single railing to hold onto while one showers. So one doesn’t. One stands at the sink and deals with matters that way.

The Carrizo Plain is so far east that one is almost in the San Joaquin Valley, near the town of Taft. The eastern edge of the plain is marked by the San Andreas Fault. And the latter is very much on display. Truly, an absolutely straight eroded bluff runs along the edge. And the plain? It’s flat. It’s home to a “super bloom” of wildflowers, so thick in this year of heavy rain, in this decade of drought, that the massive profusion of blossoms can be seen from outer space.

My Chrysler van is a wonderful thing, as it is equipped for wheelchairs. But it’s not equipped for jarring dirt roads. On the other hand, although two hours of jarring is quite a lot, it’s a small price to pay. Carrizo Plain is wild. We drove the length of it, mostly at about 25 mph, and there was very little traffic. People had flocked to the most publicized fields of wildflowers at the northern and southern ends of the National Monument, which it is by the way. But very few had ventured as far as we did. And it was a wonderful trip. For we emerged at the southern end of the plain, headed west, and followed the San Luis Obispo River to the sea. 

And what’s the big deal? Well, whoever heard of the San Luis Obispo River? And I’m not sure anyone has actually seen the river. Because it’s mostly dry, of course. This is California. But this year, California is the Mississippi Delta. There is abundant rain, and the San Luis Obispo River is flowing fast. What must be a normally low reservoir has turned into a flooded lake. There are trees submerged behind the dam above Santa Maria. And the torturous canyon road that leads down to the coast is all gurgling and frothing with the overflowing river. It’s a glorious site. It’s a glorious year.

In Santa Barbara we have dinner with our old friend Phila, then head for our redoubtable accessible hotel room downtown. We have stayed there many a time. But this time is a little different. Messrs. Hilton have been messing with the place. And that’s the only word for it. What used to be a perfectly pleasant Holiday Inn Express has become a Hilton Tapestry Collection…upscale joke. Truly, the rates have more than doubled. And mind you, this has been happening everywhere, ever since the pandemic. So, I was braced for the expensive new reality. I was also prepared to have a very nice, at least nicer, version of the same room I booked for years. The one with the roll-in wheelchair shower. Complete with railings, of course.

But no, we have spent a staggering amount of money to have what turns out to be a “hearing accessible” room. There are no railings anywhere. There is no accessible shower. And this wouldn’t be such a big deal if it wasn’t about to become the second day in a row without a shower option. Worse, there’s a low toilet and no grab bars around it. Unfortunately, the hour is late. Santa Barbara is full. We have no option. I go to sleep and worry. 

In the morning I’m not feeling very well, and somehow we get through the bathroom experience, head for the lobby and whatever battles we will have to do with the management, and I am feeling worse and worse. The manager finds us a different hotel. We head up the hill to visit Phila. And it is there, in her lovely home on the terrace overlooking the gardens of the Santa Barbara Mission, that I begin throwing up. I won’t give you the details. But five similar episodes follow this one.

Travel is a wonderful thing. But these days it does include a very high level of anxiety. The prospect of falling in a Hilton bathroom this morning seems to have pushed me over some edge. Something in the sum total of two inaccessible bathrooms and may be a bit too much bone jarring over a 40-mile-long corduroy imprint of a road grader…well, it has all gotten to me.