Rock Climbing Pics

A friend of mine at church took pics when our group @ the Colorado center for the blind went rock climbing. Keep in mind I am blindfolded and it was very cold. My hands were numb. As a blind rock climber you really have to feel the rock surface to find handholds and footholds, then you have to keep a good record in memory of handholds you can use for footholds. It's definitely a mental exercise as well as physical.


In these pics I'm on the rock...not the balayer (however you spell it).

Grocery shopping

For travel we were sent to the grocery store. Very interesting experience doing this blind. I'm grateful my travel instructor went with us b/c we had to cross an intersection and I veered. He hits my leg with his cane to keep me going in the correct direction. He really had to whack me a bunch of times b/c I kept trying to veer more. Anyways when you grocery shop blind you need the help of a shoppers assistant. A young gentleman helped us around the store and my instructor had us take turns using our canes and pulling the cart behind us. The assistant would say left or right and we'd steer the cart. I personally like hanging on the back of the cart and being led around...less mental work that way. So we had to rely on the assistant though to tell us pricing and where certain food items were and then we could touch and feel them to decide if that's what we wanted. Mark, one of the other students, knocked a rack of something over...so I had fun teasing him about that. I on the other hand did very well...but only for half the time. I bet if I had to navigate the same twisting path Mark did I would have knocked over a whole rack. It was a fun adventure.

Garden

Yesterday we planted vegetable seeds in the big community garden behind the center. OK first of all I have a "brown" thumb so we'll see if anything I planted actually grows. Second of all...I really wanted to be able to see what was around me and what I was doing. Blindfolds really bug me at times like these. I was in the center of the garden learning to feel where to put the seeds by the irrigation line based on where the tiny wet spots were. Even with sight it would be a valuable thing to be able to do.

tripped

I was zipping along in the hallway sweeping my cane in a pretty fast wide arc and all the sudden I felt it catch on something and I heard this thump. I totally tripped one of our volunteers and sent him sprawling. By this point I had taken my shades off and tried to help him. Of course he was pretending he was fine. I couldn't believe it. Felt so bad!!! He was a BIg man too and I totally took him out. Wow...I think I have a self defense weapon.

Travel

I have been working one on one with another travel instructor who knows a lot about the blind and deaf. He's been showing me other techniques that seem to be working much better for travel. If I ever do go totally blind I will likely be unable to cross major intersections on my own and need assistance from people. I really don't like the sound of that!!! Anyways, we practiced crossing an uncontrolled intersection (where the road we are crossing never stops). I had to indicate when I could hear traffic and after about 30 minutes of analysis we crossed. I have to say that when I cross these things I move FAST. No sense slowly sauntering across. The less time I am in the road the better! I enjoyed being successful for once though. Today we worked on more crossings and driveways. I think I'm getting the hang of regular travel with no intersections involved though. I trust my cane much more than I used to and can usually detect something with my cane before smacking into it. I did get lost in the middle of a field when trying to use the shortcut to go to the center. Oops!!!

I've been cooking some more food. Japanese rice noodle soup today and an egg dish on Monday. Forgot what it was called, but I'll probably never make it for me since it had milk and bread in it. I enjoyed successfully cooking though.

Outdoor day

My butt is really sore from slipping off a rock and smacking into it. Kinda ended up upside down. Not sure how that happened. Good thing for ropes. My balayer (no idea how to spell it) was letting rope out way to fast while I was repelling down and my footing slipped and well you can imagine the rest. I was more annoyed that I looked like an idiot than anything else. I wasn't in any real danger though...probably just seemed like ti b/c I couldn't see anything. After my successful rock climbing adventures last week everyone expected me to be this awesome climber and “rock the world” so to speak (no pun intended) …man talk about pressure. Instead of shrugging it off and just having fun I of course did what I always do and put the pressure ON. Always been way too competitive and expect too much out of myself. My fingers were numb from the cold and I had like no energy from being sick this week and yet I expected myself to perform at peak proficiency…even I can laugh at the stupidity of expecting that. It didn’t help that someone who knew me was there and I really didn’t want to come across as a totally incapable climber. I’m sure you can imagine how horrible I was to myself as a gymnast if I was like this after only 1 day rock climbing. Hey I have way too many physical flaws and have to prove that they are not limitations and I CAN DO ANYTHING!!! I know that’s not really true but this is the tape playing through my mind….old habits die hard!

Let's see: I also got tangled in a tree sticking out of a rock…kinda humorous actually. I was ready to chain saw it off after the little wrestling match on the rock face. Ha!!! Well despite how hard I was on myself I still ended up really enjoying the day. We went hiking afterwards and I really am starting to pick up on hiking blind. It is way easier than intersections and the sheer drop offs next to you sometimes are never even noticed until someone mentions it…then I would hug the other side of the trail. Following a trail is actually tactilely very easy to do. It’s the only area on the trail that is packed down and isn’t too wide so my cane can get most of it in one sweeping motion. I find it interesting though how when I was allowed to take my sleep shades off to look at the view I had a totally different perception of what I would see in my mind than what I actually did see. I was picturing trees, underbrush, lots of green stuff, and a full on rain forest type setting like we have in Washington state. Ummm hello I quickly realized that we were in Colorado not Washington. It was still very beautiful and expansive. I could see a climber on one of the canyon walls and now I want to do that too someday. Anyways after being able to see my surroundings I all the sudden was psychologically unable to “hike” without vision. I kept thinking I had to see what I was doing…despite the fact that I had hiked all the way up to the spot without vision…and in the lead. I could not stand being a follower while hiking. I hate hitting the person in front of me with my cane and being unable to feel the whole trail…and walking with a bunch of blind people can be really really annoyingly slow and tangling to say the least.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed myself today.

Chng in travel plans

Looks like I've been having a hard enough time with travel and my hearing loss that things are going to be done differently with me. I've had so many close calls! I have never had to contend with something that I absolutely could not do somehow and now I am looking at this beast straight in the face and wondering how on Earth I am going to function normally. All I can say is I better be one of those lucky few that don't lose absolutely all of my vision or else I'm screwed. Well perhaps that a strong way to put it...but I definitely have more challenges than the average blind person faces b/c of the hearing (or lack thereof). I was really hoping that the hearing thing would be a learned process that I would figure out how to get around...but almost getting creamed by moving vehicles in an attempt to figure that out isn't really working out.

It's so frustrating for me to be capable of studying doctoral level physics and teaching calculus and yet be unable to cross a frigging street. Well I suppose I could think about Stephen Hawkins in this case. He had it worse. Way more brains and much less mobility than I. Hummm somehow that is supposed to make me feel better....well how about a bowl of ice cream!!! With lots of chocolate!!!

Rock Climbing

Today was amazing. I absolutely loved it. A group of us went rock climbing (all blind) in the mountains near Golden CO. It's been years since I did a little bit of it in a rock climbing gym and never in the real outdoors. Certainly not without sight. I went second on the medium difficult rock and had so much fun. I couldn't see the rock and yet I was able to develop a way of feeling the rock and becoming "intimate" ith it if you will. It was challenging and hard but I totally soaked up all the praise from everyone and loved hearing "she's a natural", "look at those moves ...she's so flexible", "wow I am amazed", "girl you're a beast", etc. The rock climbing guides absolutely loved me and wanted to see what I was capable of beyond that and took me onto a very difficult rock b/c it has such a smooth surface with hardly any hand holds or foot holds. It was hard to climb and there were several times I had to literally pull my whole body weight up by my arms to grab at a ledge or small crack I couldn't even see. I did it and I am ecstatic.

It felt like I could do anything with or without vision. I had a number of scraps, bruises, gashes and such but to me they are like a badge of honor.

We also went on a nature trail hike afterwards under blindfold. I was walking pretty fast and feeling all confident but kept gravitating to the river b/c it sounds like water is running all around me with my hearing loss. Brenda would stand between me and the river so I wouldn't end up swimming. It was enjoyable and I could smell the trees, feel the ground, and didn't feel all that blind even though I couldn't See.

On the way back to the van me and Brenda were trying to help each other up a hill and were stumbling all over each other. Such blind grace. HAHA ...I thought it was hilarious...except perhaps the part where as soon as I got up off the hill I smacked into a pole and gashed my nose. Now I'll look like Rudolf. Small price to pay for such an awesome day.

I needed a day like today...it's been a rough few weeks for me and this was like medicine for the soul. Boy I am such a sap!!!

Today was a weir day. I had some very strong migraine medicine in my system and boy I was messed up. My equilibrium was messed up and I fell down the stairs. No injuries. Then I fell over on the train. Gosh you would think I was drunk. Slurred speech, smacking in to walls, not remembering how to sign my name...geesh!! But at least I didn't have a migraine.

Tonight after the effects wore mostly off I decided that I needed more intersection practice and went to Platte Canyon and Mineral ave. Fairly sizable and a predictable traffic pattern. Well the first section I did fine...yeah. The second I did ok also. The third was bad though. I thought I was lined up and then crossed. When I checked with my sight I saw that I had crossed diagonally across both busy roads. Holly cow. Guess it wasn't too busy when I crossed. Everyone must have stopped. They each have four lanes...so the hypotenuse would be about 5.6 lanes. Ok once I got over the stupidity of that crossing I proceeded to go back the other way and get to a turn island. I crossed when I thought it was time to go and hit something in the middle of the road...a median. I must have veered so much that I hit it. Then some pedestrian came running and told me I just about got creamed by a car. HUH??? How close? Well he had to put on the breaks hard and stop. Nice to know people stop for us with walking sticks. And we don't get honked at either for it. Then I crossed the three sides to get back to where I was originally. Walked into two cars twice and had to bump around them and continue to walk across the intersection. But I made it alive...but not much better than that. I need way more practice.

Off roading

Travel was a lot of fun on Friday. We went off roading. Took a trail off a road and hugged a giant tree that three of us didn't fit around. We went through a grassy field and followed a trail that would disappear in the tall grass every so often. Eventually we came to a hill that dropped off in front of us. At first we weren't sure what to do. But we decided to stick our canes down the hill and follow them sideways. I had a blast being all daring and sliding down a hill without sight. We found our way back to the center on another trail. Did take a while to find though in that grassy hilly field area. It made for a nice adventurous detour from regular travel.