Traveling with disabilities is a subject that Danny van Leeuwen knows well. As a nurse and healthcare advocate, he lives with MS and travels the world in his lightweight wheelchair.
Danny van Leeuwen, the host of Health Hats, tells good stories. About his incredible experience on a swaying walkway 20 stories above the jungle canopy in Costa Rica. About the time he fell on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. About the first time he fell. About trying to climb 11th century castle steps in Spain. A nurse and healthcare advocate, he shares his experiences of living with multiple sclerosis and being an advocate for health equity.
Danny also discusses his background, including his career in healthcare and membership in several important health organizations. He remembers what travel meant to him as a child and recounts his various adventures traveling with disabilities, including trips from Chicago and Detroit to New York, to the Camino in Spain, to the Portugal Camino and to Costa Rica.
Danny provides practical advice on dealing with the challenges of traveling with a disability, emphasizing the importance of support systems and leveraging available resources. He also touches on his work with underrepresented communities and his interest in long COVID research. Danny's philosophy of taking calculated risks and remaining adaptable despite physical limitations resonates throughout the conversation.
Danny van Leeuwen Info
Contact Danny: https://health-hats.com/#contact
Health Hats Website: https://health-hats.com/
Danny Health Hats Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/dvanleeu
Danny crossing the suspension bridge in Costa Rica with Juve Acuna, the grandfather of disability travel guides, on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1zokW8rnNk
Places mentioned:
Boston
Chicago
Detroit
New York
Spain Camino de Santiago
Santiago de Compostela Cathedral
Portugal Camino
Costa Rica
Cloudland State Park, Georgia
Christi: [00:00:00] Welcome to Moving Along. My guest today is Danny van Leeuwen he is the podcaster and vlogger at Health Hats, which he said that he calls it Health Hats. Because as a caregiver and as someone with disability issues, you wear many, many hats. And certainly Danny wears a lot of hats, which we'll hear about.
Christi: He says of himself that he is a two legged, cisgender, old white man of privilege, known as Health Hats, as we just said, with multiple sclerosis. He is committed to health equity and learning and sharing what works for best health. Serving people who help people by leveraging privilege and experience as a nurse, He Caregiver, Data Geek, and Leader to Open Seats at the Table of Healthcare Governance, Design, Operations, [00:01:00] and Research for Underrepresented and Underserved Communities, which we're going to come back to.
Christi: Danny is a member of the Patient Centered Research Institute, PCORI Board of Governors, an NQF Patient and Caregiver Engagement Advisor, and an Innovation and Value Initiative member.
Christi: Danny had a long career in quality management in urban and rural health systems, managed care, and behavioral health. One of the best things that I like about Health Hats Besides, amazing stories, is the music and, If you listen to Health Hats, then you can hear Danny in the background now and then playing the baritone saxophone.
Christi: And he also plays in a Latin band in his spare time. Welcome, Danny.
Danny: Thank you.
Christi: It's so nice to see you. to have you here and I appreciate your coming [00:02:00] on to talk. We're going to talk a lot about traveling with disabilities. But first I want to ask you, you live in Boston now and for a while you were in upstate New York in a rural, relatively rural area near the Capital District.
Christi: This is due north of New York city for people who don't know the area. And I wondered. When you were a kid, what did travel and moving mean to you?
Danny: Well I was a kid in Chicago and Detroit and Travel, I mean, I guess first travel was my bicycle you know, it isn't like now where people are just so protective of their kids. It was like, get out of the house. And you know, the mode of transportation was bicycle bicycle and walking. Now, My dad's family lived in many different places, but many were in the New York area, and so we would either, you know, [00:03:00] take driving trips to New York City, or we would if it was just my sister and I, we would take a Greyhound, and then In one of the places we lived in Chicago, we lived in a neighborhood where our house was right on the Chicago Milwaukee train. And my bedroom was the bedroom right next to the train. And oh I just loved hearing the train. And, you know, it traveled day and night. I love the sound of a train.
Christi: Me too. Those train whistles.
Danny: just the, you know, incredible noise for like, a few seconds.
Christi: do you ever ride Amtrak?
Danny: yeah, definitely. We went to San Diego recently and we flew. My sister picked us up and then we wanted to go up to L. A. to visit my cousin. And she just married and had a new baby and I just love her to death.
Danny: And we haven't seen her in a long time. So, we took an [00:04:00] Amtrak from San Diego to L. A. and then we took the Metro to Santa Monica. So we were and then back, we did it all in one day. And it was it was fun. The train's a great way to travel.
Christi: I agree. It seems, like for people with disabilities, it's really easy.
Danny: They are so accommodating. You know, so on the way there, they put us in, we didn't have reserved seats. But they put us in this area where there, there were three people in wheelchairs. that was a hoot. You know so it was my wife and I, and then two commuters who knew each other.
Danny: so we were very comfortable. you know, I'm not a hundred percent in the wheelchair guy. In the house I walk around with nothing, you know, I stumble a lot and I have to hold on and, but we have a small flat and you know, that's fine. [00:05:00] And then walking, I'm a two crutch guy, you know, forearm crutches. So when I go out, I, it's two forearm crutches and I try to do 3500 steps a day.
Christi: Wow.
Danny: I can't do that all at once, but most days I do that. And we just went to Florida. We just got back from Florida and I did one day I did 7, 000 steps. Oh my God. I was exhausted, but that was over, you know, four different times. And then I have an electric wheelchair that's foldable. And weighs about 50 pounds without the lithium ion batteries. that's what I travel with. mostly um, plane. my wife's a hiker. And so, if I'm going to go with her and it's, more than, around five blocks or something.
Danny: What I mean around, I literally, you know, around five blocks. So like 12 blocks. And then I need the chair. you know, and it's the size of like a large suitcase when it's folded. So she and I can, load it and unload it really easily.
Christi: [00:06:00] I guess that brings up another aspect of Access, if you will, and that is the national parks and the outdoor spaces I lived in Santa Fe for about a dozen years. And believe me, sometimes those trails are so narrow and they are kept up pretty well. But when I moved back east. I was surprised at the level of access and what they done with a lot of the public outdoor spaces so that people in wheelchairs and people who don't necessarily, you know, wear hiking boots can get into natural spaces. now you're in Boston, so you probably take it all for granted,
Danny: No, I don't take anything for granted. I would say We did two episodes of, hiking the Camino. So this is a pilgrimage started in the, I don't know, 11th century, it's old. And the pilgrims traveled, like, all over [00:07:00] Europe, ending up at the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral at the time this might have been 2019 my wife who's a hiker would do these once or twice a year Hikes with you know to the Grand Canyon, you know up and down you know with a group of friends my friends, too And I wouldn't go because you know, it's just I can't it's just not possible But when she said she was going to Spain To do this Camino.
Danny: I said, well, you're not leaving me behind. And we ended up, we found a travel agent and I sent a video of my capabilities and she's included her itinerary and then they booked just barely accessible, housing. hotels and stuff this trip, what we did is I took a taxi to the next town and then I would wheelchair back as far as I could go [00:08:00] back and try to meet them, And that was fairly limited even though I did spend a lot of time in town squares And that was really fun.
Danny: And then we went again Two years ago, but this time we went Portugal we found another travel agent and Portugal was a lot more accessible vlog we learned to be able to say, let us know where the accessible routes are. And they did. so there was like a lot along the ocean that was boardwalk. And then, you know, I mean, I am not like, I, I don't have to be in my chair all the time. So there was for example, a place where a tree was down and we, and it was on a road. We were happened to be on a road at the time and the tree was big, giant tree across the road and people working on cutting it up.
Danny: and so here I am in my chair. And so I could, Get out of my chair. [00:09:00] I, you know, I bring my forearm crutches with me and my wife and a friend, you know, we're all 70 plus and folded it up and, put it across. There was a railroad track going by and so put it across the fence and then I climbed over the fence to the other side and just walked the berm past the tree.
Danny: we went to a castle and just being full of myself, you know, Oh, we'll figure this out, I know you'll be shocked to know that 11th century castles are not like wheelchair accessible, and so we hit stairs and so they ended up carrying, you know You know, the, cause it only weighs 50 pounds, the two of them could carry it up and down and some places were really steep.
Danny: if they're really steep, I can do a 12 percent grade, which is pretty steep. As long as it's dry and smooth. And not sandy. And otherwise I'd do a zigzag [00:10:00] down. Well, we got to places that were just too sandy and there was no grip. And so then they, again, carried the chair down or they would, I'd get out of the chair and they would hold it. And you know, we unlocked it so they could take it down slowly and then I use my forearm crutches to go that stretch. it handles like roots and stuff. Some pretty well, I only fell once but what's going on is we're going down this path and it's in the woods.
Danny: And you know, I'm just full of myself about, Oh, I can do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden you can see the sky because I fell over backwards. And then you can see my wife and our friends looking down at me. You know, are you okay? And I was okay.
Christi: Thank goodness.
Danny: I had my backpack hanging from the back. And so. that's what hit the [00:11:00] ground and not my head. I mean, the best part about it is that I could do it, you know, that we could figure
Danny: it out. And it's such a gas. so I'm a little brazen. you know, between my wife and I, sometimes she'll close her eyes. on the, Portugal Camino, the whole thing was 200 miles, two weeks.
Danny: And they walked 170 and I did 70 in my chair. It was amazing. What a gas
Christi: were you the only wheelchair that you encountered?
Danny: You know, I encountered I Encountered one other person in a wheelchair But you know that doesn't mean that there it's just you know, the luck of the draw
Christi: how did you deal with the cobblestones?
Danny: I would have to say after two weeks on the first Camino where there were a lot of cobblestones it's jarring. You know, for the first ten days, it was like a hoot. You [00:12:00] know, it was just like music. You know, dun, you know. The sound of the cobblestones was great. But it was like, you know, it was shaking you all the time. so by the time we were done I was ready not to have cobblestones. but the cobblestones aren't the hardest.
Christi: the hardest?
Danny: Well, I mean, I think the, there's two things that are the hardest. One is roots, the tree root trees,
Christi: Tree roots?
Danny: and then You know, curbs or, I have large rear wheels and 8 inch front wheels. And so, I can really only do like 3 quarter inch in front.
Christi: That's the height of the curb?
Danny: the height of whatever
Danny: it is. you know, since I'm more mobile, I I can lean back and push with my feet and get the wheels up a little bit and then the rear drive wheels will push me You know can handle it [00:13:00] when you think about being disabled, I think that there are things that are mildly annoying, moderately annoying, really annoying, and then disabling. Like, that's how I rate stuff. So whether it's pain, or symptoms, or mobility, That's how I rate things.
Danny: And So I would say cobblestones are moderately annoying, meaning I just can't do it for hours and hours and hours.
Christi: Right.
Danny: disabling is like, well, you just can't do it. so whether you're in pain or whether you've hit a wall literally or figuratively that's disabling. So, you know, I can't buy that it has to be perfect. And I, I'm willing to take a calculated risk.
Christi: Is that your advice for other people in similar situations?
Danny: I Don't give people advice about [00:14:00] this I think people should just Experiment and If it's feels dangerous or frightening don't do it. My scale has nothing to do with other people Now I find it's a useful scale Because Where I started using that scale is pain, you know, I'm a person with chronic pain but I I don't think life without pain is either desirable or possible you know, so it helps me like the scale of one to ten means nothing to me, I have MS, and MS is seriously annoying. It's only sometimes disabling. I was diagnosed? in 2009, but when I got diagnosed, they told me I had had it for 25 years. And we could see it on the brain scan.
Christi: That must have been quite a shock.
Danny: It was both a shock and a relief. There was a reason. And I'm a really good adapter. And I adapted, you know, I just [00:15:00] adapted and then the adapting ran out.
Danny: we should talk about Costa Rica
Christi: What happened in Costa Rica?
Danny: see now Costa Rica is a country that is very committed to handicap travel. It is a hugely unaccessible country. It is full of rainforests and jungles and steepness. But Actually, we found, again, another travel agent, and this time we said we wanted a full time guide. And it turned out that the guide was the grandfather of handicapped travel in Costa Rica.
Danny: What they did is they sent me a survey. sent me a list of questions about my capabilities, both physical and cognitive and you know, what I wanted to accomplish. then [00:16:00] they designed the trip. This wasn't one where we said like with the Camino, my wife, plotted it out.
Danny: This is where we're stopping. This is how many hours we're going to walk each day. She did all of that. But here we left it up to them. It was three of us. My brother in law went with us. so this guy, first he was an expert in flora and fauna and the history of Costa Rica. And guess he had a buddy that was a travel agent wife was disabled and he would help him design trips for them. then the guy decided to make that a part of his business. he ended up, scouting out. terrain and organizations and activities he Started building a network of people and then the government got interested and took it over. it's part of their Bureau of tourism [00:17:00] they want the tourists it was amazing we went for Again, I think it was a couple weeks.
Danny: Maybe it was 10 days, I would say every day would meet at least one and often more than one groups a guide where the, guide would say, Juve got us. Hey, Juve, have this group coming. I have these people coming next week, and they have this, that, and the other thing, and this is what they want to do.
Danny: What do you suggest? so he's done like for the blind, you know, where he, it's like sound and tactile, focused, but he says the hardest is people with spinal cord injuries not because of their spinal cord injuries, but because most people who have spinal cord injuries got them from traumatic experience. They want to do Sort of out there type of stuff. then his job is to figure out how to do [00:18:00] Like how many people are they gonna need? What kind of equipment? where You know, and then he's got a like arrange all that for people, and That's just fascinating.
Christi: this is like people that want to go ziplining
Danny: so zip lining, just so you know he says, if I come back, that's the next thing on his list for me is zipline because anybody can do a zipline you're just like, you know, harnessed in and off you go.
Christi: Yeah, unless you're a big wuss and afraid of heights like
Danny: Well, the most extreme thing he did for me, he set up two events for me that were pushing the limit. One of them was a like a hanging bridge over the suspension bridge over the canopy so it was like a 10th of a mile long. It was 20 stories over the canopy over the jungle and it was like six inches [00:19:00] wider on either side than the wheelchair.
Christi: Wow. How did you feel?
Danny: I wanted to pee my pants the whole time. I'm scared of heights. it was awful. I mean, once I got across and it swayed like 18 inches from side to side, I mean, it was. but on the other hand number one I did it so by the time I got to the other side I was like so pumped and I was 20 stories over the canopy. It was Incredible.
Christi: The view?
Danny: Oh, it was just amazing. The way the thing was done is there's the, the bridge itself and it hangs by cables and then the cables every once in a while, the cable, there's something coming down to grip the, the bridge floor, right? And then there's like kind of a chain link fence on either [00:20:00] side that's not attached to the bottom.
Danny: So there was no danger of me going over, over it, you know, like tumbling off,
Danny: but I did have several incidents, but I'm trying to drive with my little joystick, you know, in this swaying peeing And so a couple of times my small front wheels went off the edge.
Christi: whoa,
Danny: And so then I had to back up and there was, he went in front of me. Okay. And there was, he could not get around the chair and there were people coming. It was all one direction. So there were people coming behind me. There was no backing up. Like it's a lot harder to back up and go forward, obviously. But it was, oh my God, it was amazing. So the other event, was in the
Danny: Pacific we went out on a boat. And with like a lot of people and then we went to some [00:21:00] cove. It was like, you know, 80 degree water, beautiful, just stunningly beautiful. And the crew put a life vest on me, but not over my neck under my arms. And then the crew lowered me into the water. And my wife and I floated there and paddled around for like 40 minutes in the ocean and then they pulled me out
Christi: lovely
Danny: Yeah, I mean and that so that wasn't scary at all I i'm not that good of a swimmer and i'm not that comfortable in the water, but it was so Oh my god, that was something You know, so that wasn't like a frightening. It was more awesome
Christi: it sounds amazing and plus if you have a guide then you've got a Translator built in for you, right? and I like the idea. You said that you sent a video To one of these travel agents. I mean, is [00:22:00] that something that you recommend
Danny: Oh Totally you know, we're all so different and it's really important to know that I can stand and I can walk You know, I just can't do very it can't go far or for very long and you know, my wife and I can handle my chair.
Danny: It's not like, you know, some people have really big, heavy wheelchairs, and that's a different challenge.
Christi: we met a gal in Berlin. We were there for an awards thing and she was getting an award boy the Event organizer and she lives in Berlin to find a restaurant that this gal could get in But she had one of those big wheelchairs and she's kind of a little person in this big wheelchair and She didn't have a problem with the theater because she could get in backstage But I mean restaurants just didn't Such a basic thing, but I wonder, do you encounter [00:23:00] people in your, in your travels, so to speak, who kind of have a fixed idea of what is disability and They don't see the gradations
Danny: I mean, I feel like there are people, I mean, what do, what do we, what do I know about your life? It's nothing, it depends what people have experienced, I think the difference is Number one everybody's entitled to some grace because the Opportunity to like put your foot in it is huge know, so people put their foot in it. At least they're putting their foot. you know, there are people who I divide people up who by, well, again, are they like, annoying or, you know, there's a scale. right. and some people are just jerks. Some people are thoughtless. Some people make the disability [00:24:00] worse. Some people, you know, just give you dirty looks. people are different.
Christi: how do people make the disability worse?
Danny: people who like just sort of jump in and put their hands on you and think that they're going to help you. that is worse.
Christi: how do you deal with that?
Danny: well, you know, I say, please, leave me, leave me be. You know this is what I need. You know, so, like, I fall. Right? So, I fall. and I have a way to get up. That uh, can, I practice it every day because that's my biggest risk is falling. And if somebody wants to pull me by that, my arm, well, then it just makes me more disabled, you know, because the way I get up, get up is I got to use the weight of my ass.
Danny: You know, I got my hands. I can push. My upper body is strong. Push. [00:25:00] My legs are weak. when I first fell and couldn't get up, you know, scared the shit out of me and I went to the physical therapist and I said, Oh, now I'm in trouble, and so she taught me how to get up and it's part of my routine.
Danny: I got to practice it every day. I got to do my squats. I got to get up off the floor uh, least one at once every day to make sure. I can still do it because if I can't, you know, then you're like a turtle on its back.
Christi: then you sacrifice your independence,
Danny: people say stupid things all the time. it depends how tired I am. You know, it's like sometimes I just think there's blue smoke coming outta their mouth and I go, oh man, look at that blue smoke. You know? How interesting. And sometimes I just want to hit 'em,
Christi: Well, I was going to ask you, has anything ever made you so mad that you could scream? Unfettered
Danny: not too long after I was first diagnosed. I was at a meeting, a [00:26:00] nurse leader meeting, and a woman who was the dean of the Massachusetts School of Graduate Nursing was there, somebody I just love to death. she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer, and she was another pathologically optimistic person. were talking to each other and what she did is she looked at her arm, you know, as if she had a watch on and said, okay, you want a bitch? I'll give you two minutes. And it was great, You know, and then I gave her two minutes,
Christi: rant. What?
Danny: so, that's something I try to do, You know, and I have some rules. the rule is I can't repeat myself, I can't like bitch about my vision over and over I can bitch about my vision once And then I gotta bitch about something else gotta move on and so, you know after a while it gets pretty hysterical and you got to be creative sometimes I just want to scream. Yeah. I'm pretty good at suppressing all that.
Christi: I was going to say major [00:27:00] coping mechanisms. people in the healthcare industry, that's their stock and trade. Isn't it
Danny: Well, I mean, it is for me. I mean, it's like, here I am now, what am I going to do? what are my options? you know, I mean, I can afford to be upset for a minute, really 30 seconds minutes, a long time. I'm not about dribbling anger, that's just annoying. Now, see, to me, that is seriously annoying. Being around people who dribble their hurt and their pain I find I can't be around it. I just have to get away from it. That's seriously annoying. Not that they're not entitled to it. it's no judgment. It's just what I can deal with. You know, I need a bubble maintain.
Christi: Plus you're pretty positive person. It strikes me.
Danny: I call it pathological optimism, but I also have a streak of catastrophizing, you know, Oh, here's a symptom. Oh, [00:28:00] I'm headed down that road now, you know, when all I really need to do is drink some water,
Christi: yeah,
Danny: Right, Right, or take an Advil. You know, it is not the beginning of the end. you know, it'll take me a little while to get to that place.
Christi: one thing that was interesting to me was you talked about working with underrepresented and underserved communities. who are they?
Danny: Well, it sort of depends on where I am. well I think people with disabilities. people who live rurally. You know, it sort of depends. You know, where are you? So, I'm on the national stage. You know, I work in national initiatives. I've gotten seats at the table Because of all my hats. I'm a patient. I'm a caregiver. You know, I'm a nurse. I'm a clinician. I'm a IT person. I'm a leader. I got my start in doing this because I could market that [00:29:00] and they would be, oh yeah, this is great because they could check off all these boxes but what do I represent? You know, I, I am a, I, like I say, I'm a two legged, cisgender, old white man, of privilege, and I don't even represent them, right? So I think about unrepresented. I mean, sometimes unrepresented are introverts, or they're people of color, or they're women. I mean, women, there's more women than anything and they're a minority and we think about it like that like that is Ridiculous, but i'm in the research world and and that's that's a fact,
Christi: I wondered if there were initiatives. that you're looking forward to what you're working on
Danny: yes in terms of my um professional work I'm focused on One is the community research partnership. So meaning that I firmly believed [00:30:00] that people with lived experience, so lived experience can mean almost anything, know a lot more. They are experts. Lived experience is an expertise. And there's a lot of money in research and that money is controlled largely by academic medical centers. But, they don't necessarily research what's important to the people that they're researching.
Christi: Can you give me an example?
Danny: Well, when COVID came to the fore, but And I was on a um, CDC initiative. I helped stand up a group that was patient focused. And then the CDC dropped out and we continued to do it on our own. And what we did is we started looking at what were the concerns of everyday people. And we found I mean, what do let me just think yourself, I mean, what are you mostly worried [00:31:00] about you?
Danny: What do you think about you think that? What can I do? You know my function, you know, can I take care of my family? Can I take care of myself? Get the food you need transportation paying the bills your grandkids your parents, getting medical care. But when we started looking at what was being researched, well, it was none of those things. And I was like, I mean, okay, so we're going to put all this money in whatever, but it's not things that will help our lives to be better, help us make better decisions. Help us understand risk.
Christi: What's an example Of what they were researching?
Danny: well, a lot of the research is on drugs, I'm not saying that that isn't important, then they would do research on white men well, what about children? What about adolescents? You know, what [00:32:00] about whatever?
Danny: It would be about was some research about airflow, you know, so engineering airflow. I thought that was good.
Christi: Okay.
Danny: That's really important.
Christi: This is around COVID. And so they were talking about like in buildings how the HVAC systems and all that is moving the air around which means that it could be moving the Coronavirus around.
Danny: Or filtering it. so that's one of the areas that I focus on. I'm really interested these days in long COVID. I work with an organization called the World Health Network that is all about about COVID.
Christi: Where are they based?
Danny: there's probably a half a dozen paid people, and I think they're here in Boston, but I'm not sure that but it doesn't matter. and I'm probably off of some, but I think if there's like, you know, 60, 000 people who are [00:33:00] members of it all over the world. Anyway. it's all sorts of people who are interested in COVID. in general. And it depends on what they're interested in. So they, they, what they have are what they call campaigns or groups. So they have a Germany group, they have part of India group. They have people who do this, you know, engineering airflow stuff.
Danny: They have people who are about masking. There are people about communicating on social media and they said they had a group on long COVID, but it was. As far as I could tell, it was inactive and I thought, well, okay, I guess if I wanted to, you know, learn more about like, what do I know about long COVID?
Danny: I'm interested in it, but I don't have it. And this is not my expertise. My expertise is getting shit done. And having a good broad knowledge of, like I say on my podcast, I know a little bit about a lot of healthcare and not a lot about very much. so I'm, I'm getting [00:34:00] involved with that and trying to get that can, helping, you know, I said I can commit two hours a week. You know, gotta be careful with your pro bono time.
Christi: That's great.
Danny: then I would say my third thing is that I feel like I'm an old fart. And a lot of people in the advocacy world are getting older. know, I'll be dead soon and the next what about what's happening with 13 year olds what's happening with 20 year olds, so, you know, so I'm trying to listen more With people who are younger than I am
Christi: so do you hang out with them?
Danny: Well, I I hang out a lot with my grandkids that's my like, main thing. Yeah, we hang out a lot and we work together. And, you know, I learned a lot from them. then, you know, gravitate towards organizations that are interested in what I'm interested in, and have a younger constituency. We're
Danny: way off our travel conversation, aren't we?
Christi: That's okay because this is [00:35:00] interesting.
Danny: Alright, we got a couple minutes.
Danny: I think what's really important about travel is your support system. Like, I do travel alone. I go to D. C. a lot. And I travel by myself and I can travel by myself. I've got to figure it out how to travel by myself.
Christi: Do you take the train?
Danny: I mostly fly. Airlines are great. They're great. I think,
Christi: They've got their act together.
Danny: especially for somebody like me, like my chair is not that expensive. I, yeah, so I'm not, again, I am not making generalizations for anybody. Everybody's got their own situation, but that's where I think knowing where the help is and not being afraid to use it, you know and asking for help. and then experiment, you know iterate. Okay, well that didn't work.
Danny: what am I going to do now? Traveling is a hoot if you think traveling's a hoot. I like to travel and as long as I can I [00:36:00] will I mean being prepared You know, I think doing your homework a little bit But frankly, I'm more of a, Oh, let's go. And then I'll figure out, go along as opposed to my wife who like, likes to plan things out. that's very helpful that she likes to do that because then it makes it easier for me. But I would go anyway. And then I would figure it out. What am I going to do next? You know, that's sort of like how my brain works. you know, if you want to travel, my feeling is do it. one
Danny: last story. we're going to Georgia with a bunch of friends who are hikers. And one of them found that in Georgia State Parks, they have these wheelchairs that are rough terrain wheelchairs.
Danny: So they're like, they have tracks. You know, like a bulldozer, not a bulldozer, like a, like a tank, and, um, you can reserve those. So you and a buddy need to take an online safety course, and then you're, you get a [00:37:00] certificate, and then you can book them. And so we're going to try that.
Christi: That's pretty cool. What part of Georgia
Danny: it's Northern Georgia, it's Cloudland State Park that we're going to. But you can go to any state park in Georgia and they have that. And I'll bet they have them in other state parks. Because if somebody's making them, then somebody's trying to sell them. And, you know, it just takes a program, I say just, it takes a program for that to come to life.
Christi: there you go. And you get to be the beneficiary of it. And you're not alone in that.
Danny: Yeah.
Christi: Well, traveling short distances and long distances and to the wilderness and in cities, too That's great. And the ultimate advice it sounds like to me is don't be afraid Go with a friend and use the resources that are available and there really are resources
Danny: Well, I don't know if I agree with the, don't be afraid. I think fear is a valuable emotion and I would frankly listen [00:38:00] to it. And then think about what you're afraid of and can you figure out something to help you be less afraid if you want to do something that scares you? Calculated risk. That's what I think about.
Christi: Well, that's great advice. Well, thank you.
Danny: Thank you so much.