Good Sheets

It's a rest day for me, a lazy day where getting up before noon just isn't going to happen, hasn't happened. Yesterday while driving from Oklahoma City to Dallas, about a half hour on the road, I began to get terribly sleepy. We pulled over at a gas station so I could rest. After about a half hour, I was ready to go again, still sleepy but rested. That was a warning. I can't just go without stopping; I needed a rest day.

We are staying just south of Dallas at a Day's Inn, not the newest motel around, nor the best place to stay, but it's on budget and reasonably close to the city. Plus it has a wheelchair bathroom. I find these kinds of places easier to locate here in the US as opposed to Canada. With consistent federal legislation, at least most hotels and motels are required to make the effort. They may do a bad job of it, but there is at least an attempt to make it work for those of us in wheelchairs.

One thing which cannot be legislated are sheets. I know this sounds odd, but the sheets on a bed make a big difference to me, to my ability to easily slide and move about. Low budget, industrial type sheets, the kind they use in lower budget motels, are generally "rough" finished with a low thread count. This means they have a lower moment of friction, grabbing and holding onto my body, making it tough to slide my legs up and down. Katherine has to lift them for me.

Higher quality sheets, such as the kind I have at home, tend to have a smoother finish to them, thanks to better quality fabric and a higher thread count. My sheets at home are 89% Egyptian Cotton with a 1,000 thread count. They are expensive. They are also excellent for me to sleep on. Even my "cheap sheets" are a high quality cotton with a 600 thread count. This means I can slide my legs on my own, without help.

This is a big deal for me, having sheets that allow me to sleep without needing someone to help me move about. It is another way my independence at home is built on the tools and devices which I cannot take on the road. We have my M-Rail, when we remember to bring it into where we end up staying. We don't have good sheets. I only find them in good hotels, like the Hilton Garden Inn we stayed at the other day. Now they had good sheets. I guess you really do get what you pay for, at least when it comes to hotel sheets.