Early Morning Wanderings!

I don’t know what got into me this morning but I left the house about twenty minutes earlier then I usually do. I thought dawn was darker then usual but I just wrote it off to the fact summer is passing. We had our first significant rain of the summer last night.. This morning when I headed for the train the air smelled of autumn. I did not get the autumn “feeling” yet but the odor was there: unmistakably autumn. The rain has caused the atmosphere to be intensely humid, feeling like my eye lids grind eyes each time I blink and I feel moist—very strange. Salt Lake is desert and we don’t understand this kind of humidity—please send back our dry air. More storms today and then hopefully well begin drying out.

I got to my stop at 6:45 am! I had an hour before I really had to be at my desk, with system on and ready to go. There are a couple of TV stations downtown and both newspapers. I was speaking with Jennifer yesterday and she was really stressing the need for getting some overage of the Russian’s visit. Since I really had an hour to burn I decided to check out the Broadcast House and see if they had an assignment editor. I figure if I can visit with the assignment editors they can fill me in on what I need to say to get the best response for an appeal for coverage. Well of course there was no one at the front desk and the only way I could even access the building was to hang round the front door until staff reported for work, swiped their card through and opened the door then go into the building with them. I figured the hour was too early and decided not to enter. It was at this moment I turned round and looked toward the median in the center of the street, Third West. I noticed because directly infront of the Broadcast House there appears to be a drive way right in the sidewalk, in he center of the block. It was then I noted that there was a short walkway made of brick which crossed the median. I just looked and stared image for a couple of minutes before my unconscious finally kicked in and started giving me feed back I could understand. The walk way in the middle of the block from a major parking area to the Broadcast was not accessible. I hate the silent but deadly architectural barriers. They sit in place and are never challenged because, I suppose these barriers do not impact enough pedestrians. Essentially what happens to a person who parks in the parking area across the street from the Broadcast House with other folks downloads their wheelchair and joins them as they journey toward the building only to be stopped when they encounter the end of the sidewalk with no curb cuts. What is truly frustrating, is spying the drive way cut into the sidewalk directly across from them. The able bodied people with traveler in a wheelchair just step off the curb and keep on going across the street up the curb of the median and down again, leaving the wheelchair user to have o travel all the way down to the end of the block to the cross walk. I hate this. If I were still pushing this would drive me crazy whether in the heat, cold, snow or rain this extra distance I have to push infuriates and exhaust me. I at least now have a power chair and this at least helps the physical strain and fuss. There is an identical problem further up the street across from the West High School.

I am going to drop some hints but I really doubt anything constructive will come of the appeal but I gotta try.