During the summer of 97 we got a weekend away and went to Niagara Falls. We left Friday night and got a motel room. I got Molly up early Saturday morning, which is not easy to do, so I could get her cast on so it would get dry before we went out publicing. She got the usual plaster LLC from toes to hip. This was one of the highest ones I have done on her, the only one higher perhaps was the Atlantic City cast. I'll tell about that another day.
After finishing the cast I propped it up on some pillows and we relaxed for a few hours while it dried some. During this time I spoiled Molly with a back rub (and some other things). I also painted her toenails while we were waiting for her cast to dry enough to venture out.
About 11:00 or so we decided it was time to go. We got her dressed, got her crutches, and headed out. We had lunch at a fast food place then went to the falls. We drove around for awhile, I was looking for a place to park where she would not have to crutch forever to get to the Falls. She does not have a lot of upper arm strength and tires quickly when crutching. I found a large pay parking lot that was near one of the better viewing areas for the Falls. As we got our parking stub I lifted Molly's cast which had been resting in my lap so the parking attendant could see it and asked if thought it would be OK if we used a handicapped parking space. He said that there would be no problem, "No one checks anyway, and if anyone says anything, tell them I said it was OK." Sounds good to me, and even better to Molly. We now could park very close and it helped Molly a lot. This was a very big and very heave plaster cast I had her in and I knew it would tire her quickly.
We made our way around the place and I spent much more time watching Molly and watching other people watch Molly than I did watching a waterfall. It was awesome, the cast and Molly I mean, not the waterfall. Apparently, a few other folks thought the same thing.
We ended up in some of the souvenir shops and I bought Molly a nice pair of earrings. She can get anything when she's casted, I love to spoil her. We shopped around for awhile and took a lot of rests. Molly was getting pretty tired of dragging all that plaster around so I decided to take her back to the hotel for awhile.
When we got to our truck, guess what we found, a ticket. I was slightly upset by this after what the parking attendant told us. After getting Molly in the truck and comfortable, I took the ticket and found the security office. I explained what happened to the front desk person and she said she could do nothing about it and I would have to talk to the issuing officer. I asked to see him and when he showed up I knew there would be no mercy here. He was and old grumpy "rent-a-cop' guy who's biggest authority was writing parking tickets and he really enjoyed doing it. I explained the situation and he said "A broken leg is not a handicap." Yah right. Tell Molly that. So I told him about the parking attendant telling us it was OK. He said "well he has no authority to give you that permission." Like I said it was obvious that I was going nowhere with this jerk. I thought about getting Molly in there in her huge cast and asking him if he still thought this was not a handicap, but she was about done crutching for awhile. I gave up, told myself to not let this ruin a great weekend, and went to enjoy my time with my casted cutie. That ticket was VERY expensive though.
We left the park and went strait to the hotel where I "spoiled" Molly some more and showed her my appreciation for her doing this for me. We eventually got hungry and decided it was time for dinner. We got Molly dressed in a nice black dress I had bought her. I had bought this dress with the thought of how it would show off a cast in mind. I took a pair of black tights that I got with the same intention, and cut the left leg off, pulled it up over her cast and onto her free leg. She hobbled into the bathroom to get her hair done and stuff and I got ready too. We slipped her clog on her right foot, got her crutches, and off we went. Back out in the public view.
We had a really nice dinner and when we were done we were stuffed. Imagine her surprise when I suggested we go back to the falls to "walk" off some of our dinner. Being the good sport she is she agreed. We went back to the park we were at before and parked the truck but, we did not park in the handicap space again. We sat in the truck for awhile and just talked. While we were talking I pulled out some markers and decorated her cast a little. I wrote some little 'get well' wishes, signed some fictitious names to make it look good, and drew some pictures of flowers and butterflies. I like decorated casts.
Molly crutched around some more for me and eventually we found ourselves resting in the grass next to a busy walkway.
I had a great time here watching people look at her and trying not to stare. Sometimes it seems everyone is interested
in a casted person and that evening with her sitting on a grassy bank next to that walkway was one of them.
Molly doesn't notice it much, and she would not like it if she did, but she got a lot of looks that night.
As darkness fell and it got cooler, I took Molly back to the motel and, after taking some pictures, spent the rest of
the night "rewarding her" for making me so happy. Late that night as Molly got sleepy, she asked me to take off her cast.
Reluctantly, I did. She slept peacefully without the cast, and I had a wonderful day, and still had the next day to
look forward to.