The Wheelchair Lift

 So, my sister and I decided that after Mom's latest fall, she should not be trying to navigate the stairs into the house. We started shopping around for a ramp, but there just wasn't really room to do a ramp correctly. Or a chair deal that Mom could ride up and down the stairs, but they seemed too hard to find space at the top of the stairs to get on and off. SO that left a wheelchair lift. We started looking at the Facebook Market place for a used unit. There are, surprisingly,  quite a few for sale! Unfortunately, most are pretty far away, or asking a lot more than we can pay. But then I came across this one in Des Moines. Harmar Highlander 2. It's only about one year old and the price has dropped to a price we can afford. SO I called the seller and got the address and called Dad to get together to go get it. We borrowed the horse trailer from Julie and set off for Des Moines. 

This thing was a monster! I rented an appliance dollie, thinking we could just strap that thing on there and off we'd go! WELL NO...... That's not quite how it works.  It's crazy heavy! We struggled to get it moved off the bolts in the floor of the sellers garage, then we struggled to get it across the garage to the trailer. It was hot, it was getting late, it was bad!

Then my wonderful son in law Andrew got to us! Phew! With his help we got it onto the trailer and ready to go!  We never would have made it without him! Now to find the time a week later to go and UN load it!

This time I knew what we were up against! I had Andrew, Julie, Ben and Kevin all on hand to help! We thought we'd need ramps, then we decided to use the movers dollies and it worked great! Look at that we got it off the trailer in almost no time!

And got it pushed into place and ready to plug in. The fellas didn't like to looks of the cord, so they got a new one and installed it and got the settings all perfect. As usual, a 2 hour job took us 4!, But look at this!

Mom tested it out a few times and it's perfect! I'm so glad to have this lift in place. Mom will be able to get out of the house so much more safely! 

Staying at The Sheraton Plaza Clayton

So we stayed at the Sheraton plaza in Clayton (which is still St. Louis I think). It was a pretty nice Hotel. We had a handicap accessible room with 1 king size bed. It was a very comfortable bed with excellent pillows. 

The hassle was with parking though. It costs $15 to park, which is bad enough, but it's a very confusing trip to and from the parking ramp. We survived though.

Checking in was smooth and easy, the folks at the front desk were very efficient, they could have been a little bit more friendly, but they did a fast job of getting us checked in. I booked a room for us and one for Son & Jean. Their room was OK too except it had stained sheets on the bed. YUCK! Jean asked at the desk and they sent the housekeepers to change the sheets while we were out sightseeing. Thank Goodness!...I mean, I'm sure the sheets were clean, just stained, you'd think the laundry folks would have noticed and not sent them to the housekeepers. 

While we were at the hotel, we had some refreshments at the lounge in the lobby. The lounge is located up some stairs so they have a "lift" for wheelchair access. The lift,(we still call it a dumbwaiter) was pretty funny to slam the ol' man in there and send him on his way while we skipped down the stairs! See him in there, looking out the little window?!

Here's a wonderful lady named Rita, who helped to get the Lift going for us and was such fun to visit with! She kept our snacks filled and our beverages fresh the whole time we were in the lounge. Rita really made our stay. I wrote a post on tripadvisor.com about our stay you can read it Here.
 Oh and I know what you're thinking...pretty pricey there Bonnie?! Nope! I booked through Priceline and used the name your own price feature and got the rooms for $45 each . Plus parking...grrrr...of course.