Introduction

“Emergency” and “Dad come quick”. In an instant, I went from a deep sleep to running around a dark, unfamiliar hotel room. Usually, when my five-year-old daughter Laurel screams emergency, it means that her 15-year-old sister, Kellisa is having a seizure. However, this emergency was Laurel waking up in the middle of the night with a stomach illness. If the bathroom would have been a few feet closer to her bed it would have been a minor emergency instead of the four alarm kind with considerable cleanup. I desperately wanted more sleep, but I had to shower Laurel and find the laundry room to start a load of wash. I felt bad for Laurel as she struggled to fall back asleep. As I cleaned and washed, I kept telling myself, (Read the entire Introduction to Embrace the Exceptional here).

 

 

Embrace the Exceptional

 

 

We are excited to announce a companion website dedicated to our book, Embrace the Exceptional. The site is in it's infancy with just a brief summary of the book along with a few pictures. However, we will be adding the Introduction, Chapter Summaries, Short Stories, Pictures and more on a regular basis.

 

This website (Kellisa's Path) will continue without any changes except for new links to our Embrace the Exceptional website. You can sign up to receive email updates from both websites on the home pages.

 

(Click here to go to Embrace the Exceptional)

 



Losco Regional Park

Jacksonville, FL

 

October 2014

 

 

Kellisa and I had a rare few hours alone and took the opportunity to hike the new trail system at Losco Regional Park. The park opened in 2004 only 2.5 miles from our previous home. I was anxiously awaiting Phase Two when they added the trails. Unfortunately, they didn't create the trails until we moved 16.5 miles away.

 

Anyway, we were still excited to try the trails and were greatly rewarded. The trails were mostly root free, wide, flat, and almost sand free. The one small section of sand was easy to navigate. The only real obstacle was a creek crossing between two of the loop trails. Not the easiest to cross (twice), but doable and Kellisa thought it was hilarious. The trails are not at all ADA compliant, but they are completely accessible with the Hippocampe. You won't find peace and quiet since the park is surrounded by expressways on two sides, but we found solitude as we only saw one trail runner during our hour on the trails.

 

(More pictures from Losco Regional Park)

 



Visited States

Laurel: 26

2014 Additions: Oregon - Arizona - Colorado - Louisiana - Connecticut - Rhode Island

Kellisa: 39

Muir Woods National Monument

California

 

July 2014

 

Our last hike of the trip was at Muir Woods National Monument. Even though it was well over 100 degrees and early on a Friday afternoon, the road leading to the park had cars parked on both shoulders for miles. I knew I couldn't walk a great distance with both girls on such a narrow road with so many cars coming and going. With doubt that we could visit the park, we pressed on hoping for a disabled spot close to the visitor center. As we approached, I realized that there was an entire parking lot for disabled parking. Of course it was full, but we got lucky, a car was backing out as we arrived. I know all about hidden disabilities, but Kellisa was the only wheelchair we saw. For every one hidden disability, I bet there's 10 people abusing the disabled parking card...if not more.

 

Anyway, we found the trail to be fully accessible and easy as we hiked through our last redwood forest for the trip. Laurel again insisted on pushing Kellisa for most of the trail. We saw more people on this trail than all of our other hikes on this trip combined. The count wouldn't even be close, but the golden rule of hiking definitely applied to this trail. As soon as we were about a mile from the trailhead, we almost had the trail to ourselves. At 1.5 miles away, we were by ourselves. I dreaded turning back and fighting the crowds. But, an ice cream awaited us at the park café on this hot summer afternoon making the return trek tolerable.

 

(More pictures from Muir Woods)