Convention- Shoreline Village


For our tourism day at the convention, we went to a boardwalk shopping area called Shoreline Village. It was beautiful! Brad got so many more good pictures of our time there than he was able to include in the official PSDP convention pics, so below are the rest of them. Not too many people attending the tourism day. It was me in my power wheelchair with Alice and Hestia the Japanese Chin, Brad in a power wheelchair, Deanna with Jaxon the Min Pin, Allison in a wheelchair with Ruby the Golden Retriever, and Marguerite with Boone the Papillon.

What photo session would be complete without some pictures of the photographer? Here Brad is posing it up in a seaside-themed outfit with lots of white, mint green, red, and lots of stripes.

Near our meeting spot there were a group of coin-operated rides! We had fun playing around with them! They had some racehorses which Deanna actually rode! There was a cat statue whose butt I poked. Of course the pups got in on the fun, too, riding in a train.

The first shop we visited was a sock store! We had lots of fun looking at the thousands of socks, and even picking out a few. The pups were crowded in the aisles together, and they did such a good job!

While some people went inside the Turkish shop, most of us with wheelchairs stayed outside for fear of breaking all the really delicate and absolutely beautiful lights. They were all different shapes with interesting colors and patterns painted on.

We walked along the boardwalk some more, passing some beautiful boats and people posing for pictures. Then we went into the hat shop! There aren’t many pictures in the hat shop because Brad was too busy trying on hats! He ended up getting a pretty lavender driver’s cap.

One of the coolest things in Shoreline Village was their lock wall. It was a part of the railing area overlooking the water that people had put love locks all over. Love locks are when you take a lock and engrave it with you and your partners’ names, and then lock it on somewhere. It will last as long as your love! Below are all the pictures Brad got of the love locks, and us posing in front of them!

Next we headed over to the chocolate shop. Marguerite and Boone left us at this point to head back to the hotel and relax. The chocolate shop was very very narrow! Deanna was pushing Allison in a wheelchair, and Jaxon and Ruby the pups were squished up between the wall and the wheelchair! It was really cute and funny to see them working so well in such a cramped space. Deanna and Allison got chocolate covered apples, and I got a sugar free chocolate toffee.

We headed over to a little seating area with tables and ate our chocolate and hung out. It was so beautiful there! We had a great time talking, and the pups had a great time hanging out and resting. Lots of beauty shots of people and pups in this picture set!

Then it was time for Deanna and Allison to head over to Chris’ trailer to check it out. On the way out, Deanna and Jaxon were on a wanted dead or alive poster!

Brad and I needed to take an accessible taxi back to the hotel. Unfortunately the time that we knew we’d probably be done at the Shoreline Village was when our taxi driver was doing school runs for disabled children– and all the other accessible taxis were doing the same! So we had about an hour and a half to kill. We first took pictures at the carousel in the Shoreline Village. It is a beautiful carousel and Brad got some stunning pictures! There are arcade games all around the carousel, so he got some great shots of me with the pups around the games, too.

Next we spied a bike/walking path that ran along the marina. So we decided to hop on for a roll and see where it went! It was gorgeous along the path! There were boats galore— including a cruise ship in the distance! It was so freeing for me to be able to roll along the path and not worry about my joints hurting! The wind was blowing and we got lots of great shots of dogs’ hair in the wind.

Eventually Brad and I came upon a beach! At first I was disappointed because I really wanted to go on the beach and that just isn’t possible in a power wheelchair. But then we noticed that there was a paved jetty that went pretty far out into the water! We were so excited to be able to go out and see more of the ocean. We saw a beautiful heron there, and Brad got some lovely pictures. While we were out on the jetty enjoying ourselves, a woman approached us and told us how cute we were, then asked if she could get pictures of us! It was really fun.

All too soon it was time to head back to our pre-arranged meeting point with the taxi. When we got there, I contacted the taxi driver to let him know we were waiting. It turns out he was running 40 minutes late!!! So we took another little roll over to a little lagoon park that had swan pedal boats in it. It was gorgeous there, too. After being on my lap all day, Hestia wanted to walk, so we got some practice with me driving the power wheelchair and Hestia walking next to it.

Overall it was a beautiful and wonderful day! We are so sad that so many people missed tourism day, but hopefully more will plan to do it next year. We were pretty exhausted after such a long day, but it was so worth it!

Leave a Reply