It's a wrap, Boston

I realize it has taken me longer to write about my trip than to go on it, but I have been busy.Yesterday I went to a service dog retirement party, for instance. Fun stuff. But back to Boston:

The view from the hotel room was awesome.

The accessibility was just OK. The usual complement of grab bars -- although no vertical bars, a sink that seemed accessible but only if you want to roll 10 inches under it, a bed that was at least 30 inches high.

But everything is much more accessible when you have a 24-year-old nephew who is thinking of trying out for American Ninja Warrior. I woke him up in the middle of the night to be excused. He lifted me out of the roll-a-way bed and into my chair. he even put me in the tub so I could shower. He got the 30-inch high king bed for that.

On Sunday I did not go to the expo. It was so nice out, Mom, my oldest sister and I wandered around the waterfront.

It was nice.

After that, we met Jess from Diary of a Mom and one of her girls. She was as awesome as expected.

And  then we came home.

That's all, except for the bonehead cabbies.

It was like this:  Before Mom and I left, we called Boston's main cab company and were first told that we could order a wheelchair cab, then that we couldn't and finally that we could but since they can't wait for the riders who order them, we could not call for the cab until we were there.

OK, except once we reached the cab line at South Station on Friday, the cab company did not answer the phone. We approached another cabbie, hoping he would call his dispatcher himself. Instead, he merely pointed at the number on the side of his door. Fortunately, it was a different number -- one that a dispatcher answered and promised to send an accessible cab in 10 minutes.

After 15 minutes we decided to walk to our hotel, so we called to cancel the cab. The dispatcher said the cab got there five minutes earlier, didn't see us and left. And he said they called (they didn't). Maybe that's so but I never saw them. I am not sure how the only person in a chair in the cab line can be overlooked.

The return trip had no better results. We asked the doorman at our hotel to arrange for a cab. We assumed the doorman of a premium hotel would have better luck. Nope. He called multiple times to no avail.

Well, not quite. A wheelchair cab did pull up, the driver came up to the door of the hotel, and then turned back to his cab, saying he was not our cab. Maybe he wasn't checking us out, not sure what else he was doing, but …

And it was not just me. The other guy with FA was staying at our hotel. We visited with him, him, his cute caretaker and his service dog as they sat and waited for a ride. He also told of a cabbie turning on the meter and spending the next 15 minutes figuring out how to tie his chair down.

Idiots.