Day 1

Houston to Atlanta to Lexington. Another first for me, as I’ve been through Kentucky, but don’t remember ever staying here.  On the hour drive down to Bardstown, every exit was either a Civil War battlefield, or a bourbon distillery.  This is gonna be a difficult trip…

I’m here in Bardstown to work with Jen, who attended O&M training on campus back in September but decided that she would like some assistance in solidifying some routes back home. Jen worked with Hannah, another one of our excellent O&M specialists on campus, so she’s sure to have a strong foundation of skills. (The two of you who read this will remember that Hannah also worked with one of my clients in California and she had wonderful foundational skills. Leader is getting their money’s worth out of Hannah Jones, that’s for sure. Nice work, Hannah!) Working with clients at home who have been to campus at one time is something we’ve been doing more and more of lately, and it seems to be beneficial to a lot of folks. I’m here for four days, then it’s over to Olive Hill for 2 more. I did a little recon of town and went to bed early. The drive to the airport in Houston from Nacogdoches sometimes comes pretty early, like today.  Sleep won’t be an issue tonight.

Day 2

I met Jen at her house this morning. She lives there with her husband, Jeremy, who is also visually impaired. Jeremy has quite a story, as do most folks with vision loss. He lost his vision due to diabetes, got a kidney transplant, and actually got some vision back. This doesn’t happen very often, and he knows it. In the interval, he learned the skills of blind rehabilitation, including O&M. That plus the fact that Bardstown is his hometown makes him my very valuable ally. His mother was Jim Beam’s grandson’s barber for several years and he lived next door to the Jim Beam family home for quite a while.

Since Jen was on campus, Jen has been getting O&M services from the state of Kentucky from a young lady named Connie.  This is great news for Jen, and something we at Leader strongly encourage. When someone either goes to Leader for O&M or gets it at home from us, they still only get a week’s worth of training. Sure, it’s more than they would normally get in a week, sometimes a lot more, but we are under no illusions that this instruction is enough for people to become confident, independent travelers.  Any O&M they can get before, during, or after can be very helpful to the client, and Connie has been great for Jen.  They’ve figured out how to navigate her neighborhood, travel to a couple of nearby destinations, and had just started working in downtown Bardstown when I arrived. We toured the neighborhood and those aforementioned destinations then broke for lunch. It started raining during lunch.  Rain was not in the forecast for a week ahead of this trip.  Not only did it start raining, but it continued all night, then turned into snow.  I know the weather is totally unpredictable, but this was a little over the top. We used the rain as an excuse to do some route-scouting from the car. Jeremy went with us and we toured Bardstown and found lots of destinations for Jen to practice getting to. As part of our tour, we passed by the local Catholic church, St. Joseph’s, who was advertising a fish fry every Friday during Lent. After dropping off Jen and Jeremy, I went back to the hotel to freshen up, then headed out in the storm to get some fish. Turns out that the fish fry ended early because of the storm which was growing in intensity as I drove. I ended up at Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken instead. Lee is rumored to have been in business with Col. Sanders at one point, had a difference of opinions, and eventually split with the Colonel. Whoever Lee was and regardless of the voracity of the story, the chicken sure was good.

Day 3

We started a little later this morning as we were headed downtown and we wanted to make sure the shops were all open. It also gave me extra time, needed to defrost the car from the snow last night. No more snow, but it’s certainly cold this morning. We parked about three blocks away from the pharmacy which we had agreed upon to be our first destination. It’s the one Jen uses on a weekly basis, sometimes two and three times a week. The first street crossing we made, Jen veered.  “Veering” can mean walking in an unintended path either toward or away from the parallel street, and in this case it was away. Veering is something that happens to the best of travelers on a fairly regular clip.  Regardless of how good you are, you can get distracted by a loud truck, or a horn honking, stepping into a pothole, or a multitude of other reasons. It’s not so important to figure out why someone veers (in my humble opinion), but very important to understand what to do when it happens.  Recovery skills are what we O&M’s refer to as the process used to get back to where you intended to be before you crossed the street. This is very important in the overall development of good orientation skills. We got ample opportunities to practice recovery skills today and I’m glad because it really helps to have it happen while I’m present. This gives us an opportunity to work the problem together and develop a plan for recovery so she can do so without me when it happens again. We worked a route to the pharmacy, to Jen’s bank, then to a coffee shop to warm up.  We repeated this, then headed back to the car to warm up again. I mentioned that it’s cold here in Bardstown, didn’t I?

We met Jen’s parents and extended family for dinner at a local steakhouse. This is usually a good thing because it gives me an opportunity to directly answer questions the family might have, and it takes pressure off Jen to answer questions about why I’m here. Jen is very dog-focused, but she is more independence-focused. Her family had lots of questions about the whole dog process and I got to explain how important O&M is in that process. I love talking about O&M, and they may or may not have heard a lot more than they bargained for.  Surely not…

Day 4

Breakfast here doesn’t even come close to resembling a real egg, but the sausage look natural. It grows in those round packages, right?  And bagels are naturally round, yes?  Either way, I skipped breakfast, fortified with some English breakfast tea and got to work with Jen. Scottish Breakfast tea is my favorite, but dadgum, it’s hard to find. And I’ve yet to find it in any of the hotels I frequent. I usually get some tea from the local grocery store and make my own, just in case the selection at the hotel isn’t up to my tastes.  If there’s a Publix or a Whole Foods near, I’m sure to find my Scottish Breakfast, but just about any store around will have Irish or English. People all say “you should really try green tea”. I have tried the green tea and it just tastes like sadness to me. That’s if I can taste it at all. I like to taste things I eat and/or drink.  Life’s too short to eat or drink things you can’t taste. Like my eggs this morning. They looked like eggs. They felt like eggs. And if I stretch really far, I’d say they smelled like eggs. Alas, they did NOT taste like eggs.

Jen and Jeremy loaded up with me again today and she said that she’d really like to work on the route to her pharmacy, bank, and coffee shop. It’s Sunday, so there won’t be nearly as much pedestrian or vehicular traffic, at least until after church is out. I’m usually in church myself, but the schedule is a little off this week due to pre-planned activities. My soul is in good shape, folks. Don’t worry about me. It seems as if the souls of the good people in Bardstown are in good shape as well, as downtown was pretty quiet.  This is good for the people of Bardstown, but it sure makes it hard for someone with no vision to cross a light-controlled intersection. If there’s no traffic, how do you tell if the light is red or green?  I’ll help you out: You don’t.  Unless you use this cool new-ish app called OKO. It uses your phone to read traffic signals and tells you if the walk sign is on or not.  Great news for us, at least until church lets out.  Jen did really well, veered some more on her crossings, but is getting really good  at recovery skills. On the second go around for practice today, Jen fell after crossing the street. She just didn’t pick up her foot enough and tripped over the curb.  Of course, the only 4 other heathens, I mean people, who were on the street saw the whole thing. And, as if rehearsed, they all said “oooh” at the same time. Someone even harmonized. Must be a Church of Christ family…  Anyway, people fall. It happens. I fell in my house the other day. For no reason. Anyway, she fell and popped up like she was sitting on a spring. She came up hollering “I’m OK!” She promised that the only thing hurt was her pride and I believed her. We went to assuage our feelings about falling with a doughnut at Hadorn’s, the local crack house for pastry lovers.  The good, church-going folks of Bardstown ate up all the plain glazed that Jen and Jeremy had been bragging about, but they got some crazy looking cruller, and I had  a blueberry cake.  Not too shabby. We passed a restaurant that was on my list to try and Jeremy gave me his approval, so after I dropped them off, I went back for brunch at The Scout and Scholar. I had a lovely plate of biscuits and gravy, with Jake’s sausage (IYKYK) under the gravy and topped with two eggs over easy. It also came with a side of tater tots.  Boy howdy!  For those of you who were secretly wondering: I could taste everything on my plate!  Best meal I’ve had on the road for a while. Afterwards, I strolled downtown and did a little window shopping and went in a couple of interesting looking places. I don’t’ get to shop much because, well, I’m teaching. Both places I wanted to go into referenced blind pigs. One was actually called The Blind Pig, the other was The Blind Boar. The Blind Pig was wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling bourbon.  Literally. The Blind Boar was men’s clothes. The gentleman working the counter at the Boar asked me what I was doing in town and I told him all about Leader. He exclaimed “Oh! I saw two blind people just thing morning in Bardstown. And another man was with them. He let the poor girl fall! I couldn’t believe it!”  I started to blame this on one of my colleagues, but thought better of it and admitted it was me who let the “poor girl fall”. I explained what we were doing, but he looked at me suspiciously the rest of my time there. Another couple came in and soothed his displeasure by telling him they had such a good time with him last night at a local club. He reveled in telling them “Oh no you didn’t.” He winked at me (apparently he’s forgiven me) and told them that he gets that all the time and he was not, in fact, the bartender at said establishment, but is told this on a regular basis. He winked at me again (I must be forgiven now, dontcha think?) and said “He must be a handsome fella, though, huh?”

Day 5

Last day in Bardstown, so I had to check out of the hotel first. Loading up, I hit my head so hard on the tailgate, I considered losing my religion for longer than a little bit. Seeing stars, I went to pick up Jen and Jeremy for our last outing. She wants to work the same route again, specifically because her parents are coming into town to watch her. She really wants to show them that she’s capable of traveling independently. As you might expect, she made herself nervous, thinking too much about her parents watching, and made more mistakes than she had the last two days combined. However, mistakes are learning opportunities disguised as temporary setbacks, if we choose to make them so. She did a really good job of figuring out where she’d gone wrong and did everything by herself. When she found the coffee shop for the second time, her parents were beaming. They’d been sitting inside, watching the goings-on outside and were very impressed with her confidence and skill. Hannah Jones, you made me look good today!  Thanks again! The coffee shop, “Fresh” if you’re ever in town, has a cheesecake that has a crust made from Biscoff cookies. You know, the ones Delta Airlines serves you as an option for a snack on flights?  You can also get them in stores, but that makes them not so special, doesn’t it?  I had my first Walker’s shortbread on a flight one time, long ago, and fell in love with them. You can also find Walker’s in stores now, too, and I don’t care about them staying in the “special” category. I like them too much to wait for special occasions. Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to try the Biscoff cheesecake, so if you ever visit Bardstown, go to Fresh and let me know how good it is.  I’m sure it’s horrible.

I’m headed over to Morehead, KY for my next client, Christina.  A two-hour drive east, Morehead is a pretty little village in a valley that the local chamber of commerce makes look lovely. They’re doing their jobs!

Day 6

I may have mentioned it before, but my cousin Bobby Gene is a women’s college basketball coach in Little Rock. His team, the Trojans, plays in the Ohio Valley Conference, the same conference as Morehead State University, home of the Eagles. Bobby Gene told me two places to eat in town (coaches know all the good places.  He was recruiting somewhere in Louisiana one time and stopped for gasWhile inside paying, he decided he’d have some ice cream and there was a deer head in the freezer, right next to the Drumsticks and Dreamsicles!)  Anyway, having been to Morehead, he also guessed which hotel I was in (the one NOT named “Motel”), and told me the local Italian restaurant was better than Olive Garden. He was right! I’m in the hotel with tomorrow night’s Eagles opponent, the Southern Indiana Screaming Eagles.  It will be an Eagle fest. If they do to Morehead State what they did to the breakfast buffet, the game won’t be pretty. Real eggs or not, they destroyed the all the breakfast options.  Nice bunch of young men. I spent some time with them in the parking lot during a fire alarm. Very tall, as well.  I assume they rebound well…

Christina lives in Olive Hill, Kentucky. Check that. She lives outside Olive Hill, Kentucky, far away from light-controlled intersections and neighborhoods with sidewalks. Her family agreed to bring her over to Morehead so we could have some options for training. Christina is another example of someone who has had some training in the past, but the state is big and the instructors are few. Anyway, she has a good foundation of skills and these are like riding a bike for most cane users. Christina did well crossing streets for the first time in a while and we walked until I was tired. She seems to have another gear that I don’t have, but I’ll be back at it tomorrow, rested and fueled up. That is, if I can get to breakfast before the Screaming Eagles…

Day 7

I did get to breakfast before the morning rush, but left the “eggs” to the boys. I went for the all-natural bagel and cream cheese and some Greek yogurt.  The Greeks really cashed in on that yogurt thing, huh?

Christina made it in again and we headed to campus at Morehead. The university started as a Christian-based school, then was a teacher’s college, then a state university. They’ve been in Morehead for over 100 years. A very pretty campus cut out of the side of a hill, or several of them, a mixture of old and new buildings, like most college campuses. Also like most campuses, there are few straight lines and a multitude of intersecting sidewalks. They can be very difficult to navigate, but since we weren’t there to become oriented to campus, we just used the area for practice of Christina’s skills. We did a lot of stairs today, lots of obstacle detection, lots of students with their heads buried in their phones and ears full of earbuds or completely covered with headphones, not paying attention to their surroundings. Again, Christina did very well in the foundational skills, and I held out until she said she was tired.  After her ride came to get her, I headed back to Lexington for a very early flight.

Day 8

Two things I learned during my time on the road: 1. If you dig hard enough, you can find out exactly what time the security checkpoint at your local airport opens, and 2. The phrase “I’ll just get gas in the morning” is one of the worse decisions you can make as an adult. I learned this after my first trip to Knoxville and had a desperately early flight. I arrived 2 hours early, as suggested by TSA, but the lines didn’t open until 5 a.m.  I was there almost an hour and a half BEFORE most airport employees.  My flight boarded about 20 minutes after security opened and it’s amazing how fast I got through.  Despite my 6 a.m. departure, Security doesn’t even open until 4 a.m., AND the airport is a mere 7 minutes from my hotel, AND I filled up with gas last night like I had good sense, I had a not-so-bad early flight experience. Lots of people at the airport were complaining of no cell service on their way in. I was later to find out about the aliens/Russians/politicians/Loch Ness monster disruption of a lot of cell service all over the country. I went to Atlanta initially, and my arrival gate was the exact same as my departure gate.  If you fly Atlanta at all, you know how big a deal this is. This NEVER happens.  I was prepped to ride the plane train and fight the crowds on some of the longest escalators I’ve ever been on, but I prepped for nothing.  It was lovely. I sat next to a couple on my connection to Houston who were going there to surprise her sister for her birthday. Although they kept in close contact with each other, they hadn’t seen each other in 7 years.  A family of 14, they were the only 2 left.  Her sister is the matriarch of the family, and she is right behind her. A lovely couple.  I hope they have a great reunion.

I’m headed to Georgia next.  Kathleen and Valdosta, to be exact.  If anyone has any dining suggestions in either place, please feel free to drop me a line.