HELPING A COLLEGE STUDENT WITH HOMEWORK

Ashley is taking a college course in geography. A few days ago she was given an assignment to find a few places in Ashland and to answer a few questions once she arrived at those places. She took a friend along with her as a navigator and Ashley did the driving. After five hours of driving around and finding more frustration than answers, she returned home with an unfinished assignment and a not-too-happy attitude toward her geography class.

Then she asked if I would help her with her assignment.

I said, “Yes”.

So, this morning I drove to Ashland with Ashley in the passenger seat as the navigator. Within two hours we completed the assignment plus completed a meal at Ashland’s fine Mexican dining house known as Taco Bell.

The first part of the task was to find the Civic Center and, once there, she was instructed to “note the large concrete block in the city yards near the Civic Center parking lot across from Garfield Park”.

Then her instructions were to follow a road up a steep hill into a residential area near government forestland. The drive took us to high elevations and dirt roads with steep sloping residential lots, canyons, and houses built on stilts.

Working on this project together took a fairly short amount of time and, while eating lunch and reviewing the assignment, we realized that the “large concrete block” that we found was not the same large concrete block described in the instructions. So, we returned to the Civic Center, found the correct block, and drove home.

I took this photo while entering a freeway onramp onto I-5. This might be the first photo I have ever taken while, at the same time, merging into freeway traffic.

This monument in front of the Civic Center was what we thought was the “large concrete block” mentioned in the assignment. We were wrong.

Ashley filled in the answers as we proceeded through the assignment.

Ashley stepped out of the truck to take a photo of a canyon, one of the places the assignment included. I stayed in the truck and took a photo of the side-view mirror.

Saying “cheese” while holding a camera with my left hand outside the window on the driver’s side.

With tummies full of stuff from Taco Bell, we found the correct “large concrete block” before heading home.