2015-01-21-Soft Skills 2
Seminars@Hadley
Safe and Savvy Travel: Tips and Tricks for Travelling in a Winter Wonderland
Presented by
Megan Shadrick
Sharon Howerton
Ian Shadrick
Moderated by
Larry Muffett
January 21, 2015
Larry Muffett
Welcome to seminars at Hadley. My name is Larry Muffett. I’m a member of Hadley’s seminars team, and I also work in curricular affairs. Today’s seminar topic is Safe and Savvy Travel: Tips and Tricks for Travelling in a Winter Wonderland. Our distinguished panel includes Megan and Ian Shadrick and Sharon Howerton. Megan is the Associate Director of the Disability Resource Center at Missouri State University, and Ian and Sharon are outstanding Hadley instructors. Today they’ll be sharing some insight and tips with you on getting around safely this winter. So without any further ado let me welcome our presenters and we’ll get underway. Ian, Megan, Sharon welcome.
Sharon Howerton
Thank you Larry. This is Sharon. I guess I had offered to go first. I have been with Hadley for a little over twelve years. I’ve been totally blind my whole life and have lived all of my life in Chicago. So as you can imagine, being her in the Midwest, we do have a lot of winter travel things to think about. I learned how to use a white cane when I was twelve, so in the early ‘60’s.
And I remember I was just thinking about that first cane which was so awful that I really, really hated it. It was a long metal can with a huge crook on it, and maybe some of you guys would remember that. I’m glad that they don’t use those anymore. I went from that to a very flimsy folding cane. And back then having to get to high school required a couple of city buses and traveling in all kinds of conditions, and I remember I didn’t feel really comfortable using the cane with gloves on and froze for the longest time.
Finally, I have gotten some sense and can travel better, certainly more safely and more comfortably. But hopefully with age one does learn a little bit. I trained with my first guide dog in 2003 and am networking my second girl. So that has been somewhat different. I’m sure we’ll be talking about all those different kinds of things. But that is the beginning of my story and initial travel experiences. I’ve been traveling for a long time and continue to travel in Chicago on standard public transportation. Megan?
Megan Shadrick
Hello my name is Megan. We currently live in Missouri, but we’ve previously lived in Michigan, and both of those experiences have had us in both icy and some pretty snowy conditions. So I’m hoping to share some of those personal experiences with you today. Like previously mentioned, I‘m currently the Associate Director of the Disability Resource Center at Missouri State University, but I previously was an orientation and mobility instructor in Michigan. I have used a cane personally for about 20 years, and six of those years, I was a dog guide user. And like I said, I previous taught O and M as well where we have much more snow in Michigan than we do in Missouri. So hopefully, I’d like to share some of the personal and professional experiences with you, and hopefully, you’ll take away a few tips and tricks that you can use this winter.
Ian Shadrick
Hello. I’m Ian Shadrick, and I am an instructor with Hadley School for the Blind. And as Megan mentioned prior to that I’ve worked both in Michigan and Missouri as an instructor. Mostly as a vision rehabilitation therapist and rehabilitation counselor but also did some mobility. Mostly in Michigan, a little bit here in Missouri. As a personally note, I’ve been a cane user in terms of the initial training since about the age of six or seven. I’m currently low vision with monocular vision.
I use my cane fairly visually for the one eye that I have, however was trained very much as non-sighted with the anticipation of losing all of my vision due to my eye condition. It’s still (inaudible 00:04:50). It’s still something that I consider as I use that. With that said, there was a long period of time where I chose not to use a cane growing up, simply, because I didn’t feel that I needed it in the environment I was in. As I became an adult, and especially as a blindness professional, I started using it much more frequently and have used it consistently for probably the last ten years or so. Both personally and professional. So I’ll be sharing quite a bit of tips and tricks today specific to users with low vision or residual vision. I’ll be touching on those areas for you today.
Sharon Howerton
I’ve often said to my peers, my students, whomever that feel like every year that the snow comes I have to learn how to travel all over again. It just seems like I don’t know why that is. I guess we’re just not used to it. I get used to the clear sidewalks and no mounds of snow at corners and all this kind of thing, and you lose all of your sound cues at least I feel, or a lot of times you do, and you really end up relying on a lot of different things to get yourself safely from one place to another.
I’ve found that I often use my cane as essentially a ski pole to give myself balance when I needed to do that. Because I know a dog who’s a whole heck of a lot shorter than a cane doesn’t give that kind of leverage I guess you could say. But I found too that when I remember one time I guess it was last year, I was trying to go somewhere. We had a lot of snow over the night, and there was no way that I was going to be able to travel with my dog. None of the sidewalks were shoveled. It was very windy, and I figured the only safe thing that I could do was to stay home with her, because I just couldn’t get any cues anymore.
Even though I was in a familiar area was not going that far. It just didn’t make any sense. And sometimes you just have to use your best judgment in terms of the kind of travel that you’re going to do. A lot of people talk about wearing hoods, and I hear when coats and stuff are advertised how wonderful hoods are. For me personally, I find them to be very distracting. It somehow changes the sound of traffic and whatever else is around me. So I’ll wear a scarf or something like that. That’s my preference actually is to do that. But hoods really get me very confused. Umbrellas aren’t so bad. But hoods especially I find to be particularly difficult.
Megan Shadrick
So like I mentioned, I have been both a cane user and a dog user, and I travel non-visually. I do have a little bit of peripheral vision but not enough to make it useful for traveling. So when I was younger and first started using a cane, I lived in the country and had family drive me everywhere. So when I got to college, and lived in the city, I quickly found out that traveling in the winter is very different with a cane. What you’re typically used to when there isn’t bad weather is very different when there’s snow or ice. The same applies if you’re traveling with a dog.
There are pros and cons to both a dog and a cane, especially in winter weather. In particular, if the sidewalks are completely covered a lot of times dogs are very confused, because they want to take the sidewalk that they’re used to traveling, and there’s no sidewalk to be found. So directing that dog where exactly to go when that sidewalk is covered can be a little tricky and depends on the dog team how that is approached. And with a cane, same thing applies. If that sidewalk is gone, you no longer have that path or something to trail with your cane, so you have to come up with techniques to figure out how you’re going to get to where you need to go, keep your direction.
Sharon Howerton
I remember traveling with my first dog Mary Jane, and we had a choir rehearsal one night. And while we in there which is over a couple of hours maybe, we got a lot of snow. And someone offered me a ride home, and I said, “No. I think we’ll be fine.” I had no idea how much snow we’d gotten. And what really amazed me about her was that nothing was shoveled yet she went down the sidewalk exactly as we would have done if there was nothing there.
It was certainly a lot more difficult. It took us a little bit longer, and I thought okay, we’re going to get to the grocery store. That’s going to be shoveled. That didn’t happen. But you can’t just count on that, and she did a phenomenal job. That was an amazing thing I found. But I also found that when using a cane you could sort of pound the sidewalk if you will, make a little more noise to find a place where you had to go which hopefully with a dog, they’ll find a path to get you through. But it’s never an easy thing and always seems to vary from one condition to another.
Megan Shadrick
Some tips I want to share from an orientation and mobility instructor perspective area a few things we’ve touched on already. When you’re traveling, in particular, in a familiar environment, you’re tactile and auditory cues are going to be very different. So even if you’re not using a cane, and you’re used to noticing what’s under your feet, a sidewalk versus the grass, or you can feel a curb as you step down. Those are going to be very different if there’s ice and snow on them.
So being aware of how that environment may change and how you can change your approach to safely traveling that route is very important. So one of the things when your tactile cues disappear that you can use are your auditory cues. If you are able to use your hearing to help you decide where you are in that space, it can be very helpful. So before the weather gets too bad as you’re walking, pay attention to where the traffic sounds are. Is there a school nearby? Do you hear kids playing in the playground? Do you hear city buses going by or a train? Where are those in relationship to where you are standing or the direction you want to travel in?
Unfortunately, the same thing applies for auditory cues. A lot of times in the winter, especially like in Michigan when we would get so much snow, and the plows would just pile it up really tall, taller than I was. It would block all of the sounds from the street. So those cues that I needed, because my sidewalks were gone were also gone. So what do you do in that situation? You hopefully find a sense of humor, because sometimes you really need that in the snow.
But one of the things that can be really helpful is knowing how to use your cardinal directions, and knowing what direction you are facing, what direction you need to travel in. And what I mean by cardinal directions are northeast, south, and west. And unfortunately, in the winter, a lot of locations you can’t really use the sun very well as your guide, because I remember when we lived in Michigan, you didn’t see the sun much after October. So the whole sun rising and setting doesn’t really help knowing what direction you’re facing if there is the sun or not.
So having a reliable compass. A lot of smartphones like the iPhone now has built in compasses that you can use. So if you know that you need to travel north, and your body is facing south, that can help you at least start in the right direction until you can come across any tactile or auditory cues that you can use.
I would also suggest before getting ready to travel in any major ice or snow is experimenting with some canes or having some canes handy so that when you do get that first good batch of snow or ice that you can go out in a familiar area and try out some different canes to see what works best for you.
I know for me, I prefer one particular style of cane in normal weather compared to when we have lots of snow. I switch up the style of cane and the cane tip quite a bit. I go from a rigid cane and a glide tip on normal days to a folding can with a large ball tip if there’s a lot of snow. One way you can get your hands on different types of cane styles and tips is to possibly contact one of your state rehabilitation offices. Many LightHouse’s for the Blind, Lions Clubs, if you have any support groups in your area for individuals that are blind, finding those resources where you can get your hands on different cane styles and tips. Because there really are a lot of options, and some of those are super handy in the winter, especially for ice and really deep snow.
And then I also want to strongly encourage if you are able to keep a phone on you. And if not, knowing where you can find a phone. Because unfortunately, weather can change. Weather prediction is not always completely accurate, so things can change. Knowing how you can contact your plan b if you need a plan be for getting someone to pick you up, or if something happens and you need to change your plans. So having that plan b and then having a plan of action, and we will get into that further when we discuss some tools and gear that we’ll recommend and how to prepare yourself for venturing out in the snow.
Sharon Howerton
I would think too that one thing you would not want to do if you were not really comfortable with the snow is to walk on say a quiet street where there might not be a lot of traffic and sound to help you to orient. Personally, I would stay on a busier street or find some other way if I needed to walk any distance, because it’s just not safe. It’s so easy to lose your sense of direction even if you’re a good traveler, and it’s really scary. And panic is not a good thing, but especially, if you’re alone, if it’s late evening or something, and you don’t find people around. To me, that would be really scary. But I would think too getting your mobility skills in order before the winter would be really helpful. Just to be as confident as you can before you venture out into a type of weather that might be more inclement than you’re used to.