The hardest part of being in all these parts of the US is that I can facilitate anything I need to do for work by spending money which gets reimbursed, but all the hard things about getting around as a blind person make it hard to actually spend time in a place and have fun with the travel. I’d say right now, the greatest benefit is time away from my kids to help me get perspective and have someone else make my bed and provide me with clean towels.

I’m trying to do at least one thing in each city I visit. And without access to all the “what to do here” brochures and maps put out for other visitors. There is the Internet but sometimes I find it takes so long to get at things that interest me that it’s too late to do them. It’s kind of like the menus – I want to know what my choices are and to get anywhere, I need to ask for what I want without getting to know the selection.

A decade ago I came up with a personal formula for what to ask about – anything to do on or near a body of water, riding any unique forms of transportation, and good local music.

In Baltimore, with absolutely no time to plan, I left work Thursday and headed for the body of water I knew about – the Iner Harbor. It must have taken me a half hour to go the two or three blocks from the workplace to the harbor via an overpass. Overpass sounds simple – no streets to cross, a defined area that would be easy to stay on. And it wasn’t at all and I was possibly the only person on it most of that time. I think almost a decade of guide dog use has emboldened me to not worry about such unpopulated areas, but I imagine my safety wasn’t well ensured along that route. I do act as if I have an 85 pound German Sheherd at my side and a blind lady with just her cane is just not as formidable.

That overpass was not neat and defined. It was spread out and led to hotels and other establishments, but without any sort of defined walkways and without the traffic and pedestrian noise that are so valuable for direction. . I very much missed the organized world below full of streets and sidewalks.

Skipping all the tedious details of that venture, I finally got to a place where I asked the one person who was around and he led me to a stairway he assured me went down to the harbor area and when he asked what I was particularly looking for and I replied that I was there on work and had an evening to be a tourist, he fell in step beside me and started pointing out things and telling me about Baltimore and the harbor area.

I know, it could have been a not great idea to hang out with a stranger, but in the past those impromptu stranger connections have often been the best part of a trip. And this was no Exception. Wiliam, who is homeless and hopefully temporarily so was a most gracious guide for the evening.He spent a lot of time with me in the big science museum there, a place I wouldn’t have even thought to walk into on my own, and made sure I got to every exhibit and read me anything I wanted. Best part of the museum – an electric harp with laser beams instead of strings. You could press a button and change the sounds it produced from a variety of western music, something probably Japanese with drums, and a host more straight from whatever the latest choices are in the standard electronic keyboard . You played the thing by running your hands through the beams. It was beautiful and I wouldn’t have ben surprised to learn I’d been playing it a half hour or more. Williwm insisted we had to find someone to tell me where you could buy one but, as I suspected, at a mere $16,000 it is way out of my price range.

Altogether, the place, the company and resulting philosophical discussions and the beautiful weather that I lucked into made for a lovely evening.