Being a quadriplegic, I’ve experienced certain disadvantages to living in Canada in the winter. Firstly, I get cold easily but warm up very slowly. Then there’s the cold — it gets very cold up here. Did I mention the cold?

I remember my old, nondisabled days when my friends and I would suit up in minus 40 (Celsius or Fahrenheit), meet and exchange cordialities at this temp. We’d go snowmobiling, ice fishing or skating and have a great time. My love of the winter cold is gone now. That ship has sailed.

For the last couple of years, my wife, Terry, and I have not traveled, and haven’t considered it a possibility. We now have two dogs, making finding a hotel or Vrbo difficult. Also, our BraunAbility wheelchair-accessible van had no trailer hitch, and according to the hitch shops, it wasn’t possible to install one. Without a utility trailer, we couldn’t bring all the supplies it takes to keep a quad alive.

We had thus resolved to stay home for winter 2022-23. We would read books, enjoy great meals, and I’d immerse myself in my computer and simulators. It’d be just fine … right?

Late last fall, the stars began to align for something more ambitious.

“I found a Vrbo in Arizona that takes big dogs — they have three of their own,” Terry said. “And Joe and Sue are camping only a few miles away from it.” Joe and Sue are friends who help us a lot, and they were game to chip in with the workload when we arrived.

“I’ll get on the hitch problem and get some good, studded winter tires for the mountain passes. If we can take the trailer, we’re set — except how do we hotel it on the road with Buzz?” I asked.

Buzz is a 2-year-old Great Dane — a sweetheart to her pack but also an overachieving alarm system with no off-switch. I couldn’t imagine us getting any sleep in a hotel with her along.

“We will search up some dog-friendly hotels, bring your headrest and pillows, and maybe we will just lean back and get a few hours’ sleep here and there,” said Terry.

According to Google, the trip from our house down to the one we were renting was a 29-hour drive — much too far for driving straight through, but a distance we might be able to cover without a hotel (if we stop for naps and are both comfortable). We found a few hotels along the route, just in case.

Solving the hitch problem took a little more work but produced an even more satisfying result. Several hitch shops turned me away, citing the difficulty of working around the van’s adaptations. I finally connected with a welder who agreed to see what he could do if I left the van with him for a week. He ended up cutting a factory hitch apart, making it fit and then welding it back together with new pieces. All for about $400!

On the Road

We’d planned to go to bed really early the night before departing, to get up shortly after midnight and hit the road. Wouldn’t you know it, a storm blew hard overnight, and when we went to leave at about 2 a.m., we realized that our 250-yard driveway was blown in waist-deep with snow!

Our options were to stay an extra day and get the driveway plowed by my cousin, or we could start up our all-terrain vehicle with a snowplow blade and Terry could plow it herself. Since we had a strong case of get-the-bleep-out-of-here-itis, she opted for Option No. 2. She worked on the snowplow for hours. At almost 7 a.m. we pulled out of the farm. We’d been up since midnight.

The roads were good right from the start. We made good time down to the Montana border, and just kept going. The scenery was incredible in Montana — a river winding through the mountains and cabins along the shore, like something out of a movie. We had our supersized three coffee-pot thermos and didn’t stop for anything but fuel until Idaho about 12 hours later. We pulled into a large gas station and decided to get a few hours of sleep by leaning back in our chairs. We woke up at midnight to find that the gas station was closed until the morning. Flabbergasted and not wanting to wait until morning, we checked the internet and decided to backtrack eight miles to a 24-hour hotel. Upon arrival we found it was closed.

The lights were on and the attendant was inside. Terry tapped on the glass, and he shook his head. He wouldn’t help us. I took a sip of coffee and waited for Terry’s response. I was expecting Beth from Yellowstone to erupt, but to Terry’s credit she contained herself very well. We sat and thought about what to do.

Our trip meter on the van indicated we could go about 95 miles on the fuel we had. The distance to Idaho Falls, Idaho, the next open gas station, was 99 miles. Not a great scenario with the trailer on. Terry came up with a great idea. She would start out at 50 mph and we would go from gas station to gas station. If we started to get too low on fuel we would stop at the next station and wait for it to open.

When we got to Idaho Falls, we still had enough fuel to go 60 miles. I think our gas mileage was close to double at 50 mph versus 75 mph, like we were traveling before.

By leaning back and having naps in our seats, we made it to Arizona City, Arizona, at the end of the second day. Joe had the house prepped for us with ramps, and he helped us set up that evening. As I write this, I am sitting in the sun with my shirt off and just got a message from my brother that it is 47 below with the wind chill at home — absolutely crazy. We are now exploring Arizona, doing lots of dog walks and learning all about the desert. Let the fun in the sun begin.