Where am I going to be today?
That’s a question I can’t answer. Most days when I’m leaving out the door and heading to work I’m as much in the dark about where my assignment will take as anybody who might ask me that question.
If there’s a big news event happening, I might have a pretty good chance of being assigned to it. Lately though, my days have been more random than even what I’ve gotten used to.
So that’s why it wasn’t much of a surprise when I was told we were heading to Apple Valley.
If you’ve ever made the drive to Las Vegas from Los Angeles, then you’ve passed through Apple Valley. It’s South of Barstow, but I’d have to look it up tell you anything more about it.
My story that day was about an incident at a local grade school. A group of eight students had taken prescription medications that one of them had brought to school from hiome.
No live shot, just a straight package.
Yes, it seemed like a long way to go for that particular story, but that was the best we could find and, hey, you got to cover something, you know?
Our mountaintop microwave receiver crashed and caused us to have to scramble to a secondary feed location.
I hate it when that happens.
Nothing could be done for our earlier 4pm show and as I hadn’t ever linked in by microwave from any other moutaintop so far out, I was skeptical that I’d be able to feed without driving a lot further South.
We managed to hit the mountain and I fed in my masterpiece of a news story. Then, done for the day, it only took me three hours to finally make it home.
Yes, I grumbled at the time. In retrospect, that wasn’t my toughest day at work that week.
Not by far.
