Special Mom’s blog

For Christmas this year, I ordered a gift for our entire family. It was a scratch off chart to show the states we have visited in the US. Along with it we got an additional scratch off chart, The National Parks scratch off.

This made me curious as a I started browsing about National Parks. Most of them are found in the Western part of the country and only a few in my neck of the woods. But I applied for an access card for my son which allows free entry to these parks. An handicapped access pass allows one private vehicle inside the park for free.

The weather looked good this weekend and after some research two weeks back, we decided to visit Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

We traveled all 100 miles of the park, North to South on the skyline drive and hiked nearly 2 miles, 1.5 hours roundtrip to the Dark Hollow Falls. We as a family have walked on trails, but this is the first time we hiked down a trail which was nearly 50 floors down. My special one has severe depth perception issues and heights do scare him and so this was of course challenging for him. There was a time, we thought about abandoning the hike. But we had so many people who were encouraging him, as I too was conquering my fear, we hiked down the steep slope. But as we reached the falls, it felt as if it was all worth the effort.

We have accepted my boy cannot do so many things. As we walked multiple 5k races the past few months, we have understood my boy has created good stamina.

So how did he do on the way up? Oh, he was fast, as he briskly climbed all the way up, I had to shout to slow him down. Yes, going down was hard, but climbing up he breezed through the same.

It was a hectic, tiring trip but all worth it. We plan to do more hikes with my special one, now that he has shown what he can do.

Okay, I am not going to lie. I was scared the entire hike. In fact I told my husband he was on his own helping my boy. My younger son walked fast and was nowhere to be seen and with no phone connection, I was getting a bit worried. So I pushed myself down the path and I would say that was a good motivation for me. So it was a relief when I did meet him at the end of the trail. Did I conquer my fear of heights. I would say not much. This was steep but not deep 😊. I remembered my favorite criminal show detectives spending time here to retrieve dumped bodies by serial killers. That too was in the back of my mind. Anyway unlike those shows, it was a warm late winter day and pretty crowded. In fact I saw kids and old people braving themselves with sticks on this path. I am glad that I did it with them.😊

One park checked off the list. So, what is next? I have no idea. Meanwhile keep practicing hiking in our local trails. And we do have plenty of them near our house.