Jubilee Day is accessible, butt ...

Best thing about a street fair is a street. Streets are made for rollin’. Worst thing about a street fair is crowds. Who wants to spend a wheelchair outing rolling through a forest of buttocks?

We always look forward to Jubilee Day in Mechanicsburg, PA annually the third Thursday in June. With a little pragmatic adaptation we also always enjoy ourselves.

Billed as the largest one day street fair in the Eastern United States, somehow 60,000 visitors fit into the .6 mile of Main Street Mechanicsburg.  

We adapt to both crowds and heat (Patti is also challenged by Multiple Sclerosis intolerance of heat) by simply arriving early and departing early, works for us year after year.

Jubilee Day officially begins at 10 AM. Arriving even earlier we have always found everything open. In the cooler crowd-free summer morning it really is a treat to roll down Main Street.  Lemonade under a shade tree and you can almost feel the past in those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.

Unique to street fairs is vendor shopping. Unlike department stores or mall stores where counters are designed for standing people, street fair vendors sell from folding tables. For Patti shopping in a wheelchair this could not be more interactive and ideal.

Then there is the food, blocks of food. We do have to factor in Patti’s challenges to hold and eat food along with risk of MS related dysphagia from distractions with all the hoopla. Again here we adapt by simply bringing along utensils and a plate in her wheelchair backpack, creating options. 

Two stages of entertainment open at 10 AM.

Accessible parking is available in the municipal parking lot on West Strawberry Alley and accessible public portable restrooms are available every couple blocks.

By lunchtime the crowds are seriously starting to build and the cooler morning is replaced by summer heat and humidity … that is our cue to say good-bye.

Knowing not only challenges but limitations is a key to a successful and enjoyable outing.

Caregivingly Yours, Patrick Leer

web site: http://caregivinglyyours.com/ 

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