RVing makes new adventures possible for a family of four, including their 16-year-old with disabilities.
By John Johnston, Associate Editor
December 2019
A few years ago, when Donn Hensel first raised the possibility of buying a motorhome, the idea met with stiff resistance from certain members of his family.
“I was adamantly opposed to this for the longest time,” said his wife, Lori, a math intervention specialist for primary grades. The Hensel family, F455966, had been making regular trips to Walt Disney World in Florida. Lori’s preference was to fly, so that travel time to and from their home in western New York was kept to a minimum.
It was even harder to sell the RV idea to their daughter, Ginna, then 13.
“When my parents first said they were going to buy an RV, I thought they were crazy. I thought they were kidding. I was not for it,” said Ginna, now 18, the older of the Hensels’ two children. “I didn’t want to travel in an RV with my family during the summer.”
Lori eventually came around to Donn’s way of thinking. “We got to the point,” she said, “that it was time to try other things and show the kids more of the country than just Florida.”
For the Hensels, traveling by RV also makes sense for another reason. Compared to hotels and air travel, it provides a much more stable environment for their 16-year-old son, Charlie, who has physical and intellectual disabilities.
The Hensels learned that something was wrong at the midpoint of Lori’s pregnancy with Charlie.
“We were given a choice of whether to continue or discontinue the pregnancy, knowing Charlie may have some profound disabilities, but (doctors) weren’t sure how profound they might be,” Donn said. “We made the choice that was in our heart to move forward with this gift from God and accept this challenge.”
Charlie was born with multiple disabilities, including agenesis of the corpus callosum, a rare disorder in which part or all of the brain that connects the two cerebral hemispheres is missing. He has limited verbal skills. And because of sensory-related difficulties, his behavior can be affected by things he touches, sees, and hears.
What’s more, muscles in Charlie’s legs didn’t develop normally, so for years he could not walk. He was 6 when the Hensels met with a doctor at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Erie, Pennsylvania, who gave them hope. Over the next five years, Charlie underwent nearly 20 surgeries and procedures, and he was outfitted with orthotic braces.
Today, he can walk unassisted. When there’s a need to trek long distances, he might use a walker or a wheelchair.
Even before Charlie began taking steps, the Hensels wanted him to experience as full a life as possible. They enrolled him in an adaptive snow skiing program at Holiday Valley, a ski resort near their home. He now skis there at least a half dozen times a year. It’s where, while on a ski lift, he turned to his mother and uttered his first complete sentence: “I love skiing at Holiday Valley.”
Charlie also loves RVing.
Initially, the Hensels bought a Type C motorhome, but the shower was too small for Charlie. They sold it and bought a Coachmen Mirada Type A, which has a large walk-in shower. Charlie’s bed is in the 37-foot motorhome’s bunkhouse, where he can rest and find refuge, as needed.
The Hensels travel in their Coachmen Mirada motorhome, which they nicknamed Trolley.
The Hensels named their coach “Trolley,” after the Walt Disney World streetcars, “because trolleys take you on great adventures,” said Donn, a former schoolteacher and principal who now sells commercial real estate.
Three years ago, Trolley took the Hensels farther west than they had ever ventured — to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons. In West Yellowstone, Montana, they came upon a zipline attraction that had a scaled-down version for young children.
Lori wanted Charlie to try it, so she found a worker and explained the situation. The worker, who happened to be a special-education teacher, happily helped him don a harness and a helmet. Then Charlie sailed along on the cable, just a few feet off the ground.
“The laughter that came from him, the joy, was immeasurable,” Donn said. “At that instant, he was like any other kid. We look for experiences like that.”
The trip out West marked a turning point for Ginna, who a couple of years earlier thought her parents were crazy for buying an RV.
“Our first couple of trips, I didn’t really appreciate them that much,” she said. “I was a moody teenager who wanted to go her own way.”
But moodiness gave way to maturity.
Ginna recalled being awestruck the first time she saw the Grand Tetons. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t know such beauty existed.’” As Trolley motored along, she sat on the floor, trying to see as much of the mountains as possible through the windshield.
She’s a first-year college student now. Her goal is to become a school psychologist and then an attorney, which will equip her to be an advocate for people with disabilities. She’s already learned much from her brother.
“I am the kind of person who believes that everyone has a voice,” Ginna said. “And when someone can’t find their voice, you fight to help them find it.”
Traveling in a motorhome for 45 to 60 days a year has literally brought the entire family closer together.
“Don’t get us wrong. We have our moments of great strain and strife and disappointment and hurt,” Donn said. “Charlie has bad days. We have bad days. And we certainly wonder about the future, because Charlie will always require the care of others.”
So, while traveling in an RV with a person who has disabilities might not be for everyone, it has been a blessing for the Hensels. As Donn puts it, “We’ve engaged life.”
“It can be hard,” Lori said. “It can be extra work. But I don’t even think of it as extra work. We just do it. And the payoffs are priceless.”