Day 1

I flew out to Sacramento on Sunday, with a connection in Salt Lake City. I love Salt Lake City’s airport. So bright, with floor to ceiling windows everywhere which provide the natural sunlight and a view of the mountains surrounding the Salt Lake Valley. Just gorgeous. And, the men’s restroom has a ledge in front of the urinals where a traveler can rest his carry-on luggage without placing it on the floor of the restroom. Brilliant. From Houston to Salt Lake, I sat next to a gentleman named Brad from Kalispell, Montana. Brad works as an announcer for the PBR (Pro Bull Rider) circuit. What a fascinating job. His mother was an Olympic swimmer and his grandfather, Billy Narducci, played third base for the Dodgers for several years. He still has his grandfather’s glove. Very groovy.

On the flight to Sacramento, I sat in the exit aisle with no seat in front of me. Great for leg room, but a little loud, and the TV screen and tray table were hidden in the armrests and took an act of Congress to deploy. My grandfather would say that you “had to hold your mouth just right” to get them to work. Luckily, I was sitting next to a Delta employee who showed me how to work everything. I had started watching “The Big Chill” on the first flight, and wanted to finish it. “The Big Chill” had been on my mind since the week before, when the universe kept putting it in front of me. Helping my mother clean out her house, I found the soundtrack on CD. The next night, my Aunt Shirley mentioned that she had watched the movie again recently and remembered how good it was. Shirley has always been my touchstone for music and culture growing up, and I’ve always trusted her on such things. (Even though she bought my cousin Bobby Gene the Beach Boys “Pet Sounds” album when he was in his formative years and not me. She did hook me up a few years ago with a literal boxload of music…) Her voice on music and culture has always been a strong one in my life. With this in mind, and with the help of my seatmate, I wrestled the TV screen out of it’s lockbox and finished my movie just before landing in Sacramento. I had about a two hour drive up to Redding, just enough time to listen to the Lions collapse on national radio. So close, and yet so, so far. Despite a beautiful drive through the central valley of California, I was in a bad mood when I got to Redding. I ate chain fast food, checked in to the hotel, and went to bed.

Day 2

My client here in Redding, Alina, has a job so we’re working around her schedule. I spent the morning route-scouting and getting my bearings for Redding in the daylight. I went over to her house after she got off work where she showed me around and we explored her neighborhood. A nice one, for sure, but there are no sidewalks. In this type of neighborhood, pedestrians are supposed to walk on the left side, facing oncoming traffic, whether they are visually impaired or not. It does make the person traveling with a cane or dog safer as they can be seen and identified by the driver sooner in the process. This may mean that someone may have to change up their routes a bit, but it’s safer overall. Also, if you’re inclined to pursue a dog for your mode of travel, guide dogs in general are all trained on the left, and to follow the left curb. All that to say Alina and I re-worked her route to work where she could follow the left curb and not make any mid-block crossings and still get to work. We also worked on routes to a couple of restaurants in the area.

After finishing for the day, I looked to the west and looked at the mountains near and said to myself, “I gotta go there.” So I drove west past Whiskeytown Lake and up to about 3,200 feet, the highest point in the nearest pass, then hiked the James K. Carr Trail on the way to a waterfall. All I could hear is the water rushing through the canyon (and my tinnitus, which was also partially drowned out). So very peaceful. I felt a little less burdened by everything. I didn’t get to finish the trail as I was losing the light, so I turned around and hiked back to the parking lot. My free, hot breakfast was long gone, so I finished the night in search of a local place suggested by Alina. Had a pretty good burger at The Habit, then headed back to the hotel. The forecast calls for rain tomorrow, but we’ll wait and see.

Day 3

Well, the weatherman was right. Rain, rain, and more rain. By the time I got over to Alina’s, it had lightened up a bit, so we decided to go downtown in Redding and work on light-controlled intersection crossings. Just before we got out of the vehicle, the skies opened up again, but we went on with our planned route. We did shorten it by a block, but we finished our task and then went to the Sundial Bridge over the Sacramento River. The bridge and surrounding nature area is another place Anita likes to go to get exercise and to meet friends. The bridge was built 20 years ago and is covered with glass panels that are lit up by different colored lights at different times of the year. The Sacramento River is flowing strong these days and I was glad to be above it. Soaked from head to toe, I took Alina home and we made plans for tomorrow.

For lunch, I ate at a local place called Trendy’s. This place was recommended to my by my colleague, Brad Welling. Brad and Garett Waldie, another O&M, usually supply me with eating suggestions at my various destinations around the country. Brad didn’t let me down, as Trendy’s fed me with carnitas tacos with a spicy, creamy aioli sauce drizzle, and homemade chips and salsa. I’m headed to Garett’s suggestion tomorrow evening, a place called Jack’s. Apparently, Jack’s is the oldest restaurant in Redding and is know for it’s steaks. Surely, I’ll be disappointed again.

Day 4

Alina is interested in a guide dog and since she’s been to Leader Dog recently, all she has to do is fill out an addendum to her application, which includes a video of her on a familiar route, showing what she’s learned and practiced since her time on campus with us. It wasn’t raining when I showed up at her house, so we went right to work. She chose to video herself traveling through her neighborhood to her local pharmacy, which is on the way to the grocery store where she works. She couldn’t have done any better on this route, and we’ll be shipping her a dog right away! If it were only that easy, but she took a big step today.

For dinner, I went to Jack’s, just like Garett suggested. It was an excellent suggestion. I hope Brad and Garett’s suggestions are just as good for Oroville, my next stop, as they were here in Redding. I had a nice steak in a nice atmosphere. It reminded me of a scene from “The Godfather” in which a hit is being discussed at every table. Very speakeasy-ish. Nice job, Garett!

Day 5

Travel day. I’m moving from Redding to Oroville, approximately two hours south of Redding to work with another recent O&M program grad, Joy. I had planned to drive through the Lassen Volcano National Park, the Lassen Volcano being something I know nothing about, but snow chains were required as you got closer to the area, so I ruled that one out. I drove through olive or almond groves, I couldn’t tell which, that went on as far as you could see in either direction. Just mesmerizing. All in perfectly symmetrical rows, whichever way you look. Like Arlington National Cemetery, but with trees. Fascinating. Anyway, got to Oroville, checked into the hotel and scoped out the town, did some route-scouting. Also located Garett’s restaurant selection for Oroville, Lucina’s Taqueria. It was a little hard to find because it’s attached to the back of a convenience store, only identified by a hand-painted sign. Upon entering, I see a sign that says, Maximum Occupancy: 35, and there’s chairs for 10. Nobody speaks much English, and that’s usually a good sign that the food is about to be good. I ended up getting the asada fries, which was French fries covered in queso, crema (sour cream) and carnitas (pork). I could feel my veins shrinking as I ate, but was sure to die a happy man!

Day 6

I met Joy at her house where we made a plan for the day and the rest of our time together. She has some hearing loss and uses a support cane in her free hand for very occasional balance issues, so things will look a little different than “normal”, but that’s what makes this profession great: no two people are alike. It’s a puzzle every time and I rather enjoy puzzles. Joy’s 11 year-old daughter decided to join us and she was quite the tour guide. We route-scouted for a bit, checking out areas for possible training and ended up at Riverbend Park, a nice place on the Feather River with fitness trails, playgrounds, picnic areas, etc. It turned out to be a beautiful day, so a walk in the park seemed like a great idea. It was also a great time for me to really evaluate Joy’s mobility skills in a low pressure environment. From the park, we went to practice a route that Joy travels on a regular basis, from a bus stop to a local coffee house, Mugshots. It’s not a long route, but it’s a challenging one which contains a crossing at a 4-way intersection that has ramps but the ramps point to the middle of the intersection, so lining up can be a real issue. We worked on some strategies for crossing then went on to find the coffee shop. Joy’s daughter is learning how to help her mom without helping too much, which is hard to do, but she did well. We rewarded ourselves with a treat from Mugshots and made it back to the car, working on that challenging crossing once again.

I attempted to get into the mountains again this afternoon, but was stymied by private access roads and a poorly researched route. Darkness falls fast in the west, and I found myself on a narrow road in a bigger-than-necessary vehicle in the dark. After making a 12 or 13-point turn, I headed back to town in order to try Brad’s suggestion for my meal in Oroville, Boss Burger. An old fashioned hamburger joint, Boss Burger sacrificed about 17 potatoes for my French fries that came with the enormous burger. Quite good. Way too big, but it was very, very good. Nice job, Brad.

Day 7

We started off today in the rain because we had no other choice and we worked on a route that Joy travels in which several destinations can be found in a shopping strip. Pharmacy, hearing aid supply and medical clinic were all found fairly close to each other and we worked the route back and forth until Joy got a good feel for where everything was. We then backwards chained a route through the parking lot, across the street, to the bus transfer station. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, but parking lots are evil places. We found the least bad choice around it and did our best. This will take some work. We then went back to the route to Mugshots and practiced that again. We got a break from the rain, so we went back to the bus transfer station and worked on the route through the evil parking lot. Both of us were pretty wet by then so we called it a day, and, of course, the rain quit after I dropped off Joy.

I drove up to the Oroville Dam and lake, just a beautiful area east of town. Donner Pass is not too far from here. It’s THAT Donner Pass, the one where folks got stranded and ended up on each other’s menu all winter long. I walked across the bridge and back and the wind got really tuned up on the return route. I must have walked twice as far on the way back as I did on the way over there. The wind blew so hard, I started thinking about the Donner Party and how helpless they might have felt. The wind blew so hard through dinner, it almost drowned out the incredibly loud birthday party at the table next to me. It blew so hard at the hotel that night that the power went on and off several times. It blew so hard that Joy texted me to make sure I was alright. She says it’s never blown this hard since she lived here, which is practically all her life. Oh great. Like Aunt Shirley said, “I’ve found myself in the middle of another atmospheric anomaly.” Can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds.

Day 8

Well, my power never went out for more than 10 minutes or so at a time, and I had it all night. Others in Oroville were not so lucky, including my client. The kids are out of school, which of course make them happy, but moms and dads who have things to do have to make arrangements for the smaller ones, for sure. The rain continues, off and on all day, until we’re done, of course. After I took Joy home after a day of work, the sun broke through the clouds, almost as a sign that we did well. Might have been just the clouds parting at the end of a storm, too, I suppose. I’ll go with the sign theory. It’s much more romantic. We worked on two specific routes today and really got a lot of work done. A huge benefit of working with adults is that they understand the benefit of practice and repetition. When I worked with kids in the beginning of my career, I quickly learned that my football practice repetition style of learning didn’t work. I got called “boring” quite a bit. But I digress. Joy understands why she needed to wash, rinse, and repeat. More than once and we saw benefits. She completely nailed a couple of difficult routes. The last one we worked on is the one she wants to film for her guide dog application and she did it so well, she stated that we should have filmed it. I said “’Why don’t we?” (We had previously scheduled to film this tomorrow). She says “Now?” And I said “Indeed.” Quotation marks aside, we filmed the route and she nailed it again.

Dinner tonight was with Joy’s family at the Feather Falls Casino. They all had sushi and I had salmon. A good night for us, a bad night for fish. Joy’s husband is a bus driver so I got to ask him a lot of questions about public transportation. I really picked his brain. He asked me a lot of questions about blindness, O&M, and guide dog travel. Lots of brain picking going on tonight.

Day 9

Joy had class today so we started a little a later than usual, and all we really needed to get done was a couple of additional videos for her application. Their power is still out, but you can’t tell in the videos because… the SUN IS OUT! I’m so excited. My rental vehicle has a sunroof and I’m using if for the first time in days. The sun roof is a nice feature and I’ve really enjoyed it, but the best thing about this vehicle is the heated steering wheel! IYKYK. (It’s what the kids use for “If you know, you know”). I learned to love the heated steering wheel about a year ago in Los Alamos, New Mexico and I covet it in a personal vehicle. The heated seat is nice. The air conditioned seat is great. But the heated steering wheel is like getting bumped to first class ( I would suppose). It’s like rain on a tin roof. It’s like hot cornbread in a glass of cold milk. Mmmm…

We finished filming and there was daylight left, so I took a drive into the mountains to see what I’d been missing the past three days. Turns out, I was missing a lot. Just beautiful country. I drove as far as the road would take me. Literally. The road was closed just past a work camp, way up high in the now misty mountains. Yes, it’s raining again, so I head back to the hotel to (hopefully) finish this blog and other paperwork. I’m not going to write about my travel day tomorrow unless something extra special happens. I know you’re all terribly disappointed.