NEW YORK, NEW YORK

This was a confidence-building day. After the usual morning routine, two trainers and three of us students drove to New York City. As the song says “If You Can Make It There, You’ll Make It Anywhere.” There were actually two vans each with the same ratio of students to instructors. We drove 35 miles from campus to the Lincoln Tunnel that opens in Manhattan. We parked at the Port Authority and took three separate escalators down to catch the subway. Trinity was excited and eager to go. There was lots of noise in the subway station, but she was good with it. We had also negotiated two turn styles before getting to the appropriate platform. The trains don’t give much time to get on and get seated before they are off again. Our stop was at the Columbus Circle, a traffic circle at Central Park. We walked in the park for a while giving distractions of horses and pigeons. The dogs did very well. Then we walked along 6th Avenue from 59th to 42nd. We turned right on 42nd and went to 8th, crossing Time Square in the process. After turning left on 8th, we walked another block and a half to the Port Authority where we had lunch before driving back to Seeing Eye. There were lots of pedestrians, and lots of traffic, but it didn’t seem as crowded to me as when I was there while training with Angie in 2000. There were some work errors, but all in all, the dogs did very well. We all were certainly hot and tired by the end of the trip. We left at about 9:00 and were back at campus by about 1:45. Thankfully, much of the walk was shaded by buildings and trees.

We did not have an afternoon workout but rested, much deserved.

After the evening meal, we who are retrains had a “Going Home” lecture at 6:30 and it ended about 7:45. There was the usual last park time at 8:00.

Now, at 8:45, Trinity and I are going with another student and the night instructor on a night walk. Things can look different to the dogs after dark. All their training until now has been done during the day. In fact, they have not been out after dark since they came in for training.

We are back now after the night walk. It was very humid and 84 degrees. It felt like a sauna. It was a relatively short walk from the training lounge north to Market and to the Morris and Buddy statue. My partner wanted to check it out again and we took night pictures of it as well as of the plaques nearby. We walked through the park and back to the car by way of Dehart Street.

It was a very good day.