Waiting for the train

We’re on the road again!  Woohoo!  Mom went shopping a couple weeks ago and came home with a brand new suitcase.  Yesterday she got it out and started loading it up.  Boy did I get excited.  Something new to see, new places to go, we had to be heading somewhere!

This morning she loaded the suitcase in the car and off we drove.  We didn’t go far though, only to Galesburg.  Well I’ve never been to Galesburg before, but still this was nothing like our last trip if this was all the further we were going!  But then a surprise.  We got out of the car and went in this building next to the train tracks.  This was exciting too.  I remember buildings like this from our last trip.  But it was only a museum.  This was different.

Mom got “tickets” and then we sat down to wait.  Man was that hard, I wanted to sniff everything and say hi to all the people that were there.  But I was a good boy and tried to sit quietly and wait.  I couldn’t help jumping up a few times to see what was going on.

We didn’t wait too long, then we went outside.  And there was a train!  I remember riding the metro in Washington, DC.  The station was different there, but here we were boarding a train again.  We crossed the tracks and boarded.  It’s exciting.  We’re really going on a trip again! I wonder what where we’ll go and what we’ll see.

Looking out the window

This train was quieter than the Metro and slower.  But there were lots of people on the train and they loved me of course! Everything was new and exciting.  At first I jumped up when there was something going on.  But eventually I settled down like a good service dog should and

Chilling on the train

Chicago's Union Station

We got off the train at Chicago’s Union Station.  Wow, what a place.  It is so big and so many tracks.  I’ve never seen anything like this.  And boy are there a lot of people!  We had to work our way through a lot of crowds.  After the initial excitement of arriving, I took my job very seriously and wended our way through the crowds like a pro!  It was a lot easier once mom put the bags in a locker (she complained a lot about that, boy was it expensive – $4/hour! ).

She says we aren’t staying here but just stopping for 3 hours.  So the locker, expensive as it was, let us take some time to walk around the city.

Sporting my new harness in Chicago

You may notice I have new harness – well you can’t really see it in this picture, but you can see I have one.  This lets me help mom much more now that I’m old enough!  This one isn’t right for us, so we’re going to have to get a new one, but at least it’s better than nothing.  We can really walk together in this one!  Usually mom starts hurting after a block or so and has to slow down because she’s limping.  Now she can put some weight on me and walk much more normally!  We even managed to walk around Chicago for 2 hours.  That’s the longest we’ve ever done any real walking, it was great!

Revolving door

Sleeping on the train

Well after the breakfast we said a sad goodbye to everyone again and got in the car.  I got excited to be traveling again but settled down and went to sleep.  Maybe we were going to some new place to explore like the last time we went on a trip.  But alas, when we stopped again we were at home.  Maybe next time we can take a long trip again.  Mom hopes so too.

So home we are again… I am so tired, I’ve been crashed on the floor since we got home. It was a tiring and fun weekend!

Today I got to chase bubbles.  They were fun!  Mom said that for a while the performers were playing Lawrence Welk music and that’s why the bubbles.  I don’t know who that is, but if bubbles were involved he must have been great!  The only thing is bubbles don’t taste good, but they are fun to chase and bite anyway!

Gina and Anek made some beautiful guitar picks and gave them to everyone.  Check out the pictures in the gallery below.  Mom doesn’t play guitar (although sometimes she thinks she’d like to learn), but she loved the pick anyway and what a great momento.

I got mom to take this really funny picture.  I hope you find it as funny as mom and I did.  Lying on the floor was a Caution wet floor sign with a shoe and a glass.

The jam finally wound down about midnight when we had to be out of the room.  After we took down all the equipment, we sat around and they played acoustic and talked.  But eventually all good things must come to and end and we had to go.  Everyone was sad to say good bye.  Mom so enjoyed meeting all her friends from SecondLife and getting to know some new friends that she hadn’t met before.  She added lots of new friends the last few days!  We’ll see some of them in the morning for breakfast, and of course mom will see them online in SecondLife.  The music was great, the people were great… and they all loved me of course!

Here’s a few more pictures from the jam.  I hope we get to do this again sometime, it was so much fun!

We had a great day!  More music, more fun.  I am meeting some of the greatest people here!  My favorite is also one of mom’s favorite performers.  I get so excited every time I see him. He’s so cool.  I’m not quite sure why, but I just love him!

So many people played and it was incredible.  I got more used to things today so I started to settle down, but I was still very excited by all the energy in the room.  Everyone says I’m being pretty good though.  It’s really hard!  I just want to get involved, especially when people are dancing.

Here’s more pictures from the jam.  My mom says it’s great meeting the people in real life that she knows online.  And I think they are really cool, I love everyone!

This morning mom started packing again.   She was rushing around trying to get everything ready.  She’d been talking about going to a jam for weeks but I don’t really care about fruit and sugar and how do you go to a jam.   She piled a small suitcase and some work stuff in the car.  She’s meeting with someone in Chicago for work (she’s consulting now in addition to Disability Assistance Dogs) and she says we’re going to a jam.  And off we headed to Chicago.  It was a short drive today, only 3 hours.  Maybe we’ll go further tomorrow.  Mom says no though, just to Chicago and back.

As soon as mom started driving, I went to sleep as usual.   We got to Chicago and found out that the tornado that hit Des Plaines earlier this week on Tuesday had knocked out the power at the hotel and it was still out!  But the hotel had a generator set up for the jam.

Now I know what a jam is.. it has nothing to do with fruit and sugar.  It’s music!  Mom listens to people perform in SecondLife.  Now some of those people are getting together in Real Life to jam together.  It is sooooooo cool!  There is tons of energy and I am so excited!  The music is loud, but mom enjoys it, and so do all the people there.  Different people take turns and sometimes there’s 6 or 7 at once, sometimes one or two but almost always some music.

Wow it’s incredible!  Here’s some pictures from the jam!

But before we left Joliet, mom took me to this park along the Des Plaines River. It was great!  I got to chase the ball and then we walked along the river.  Our camera did a lousy job of taking pictures of me chasing the ball, but you know I had to put them in anyway because I’m very good at chasing the ball! And I always lay down so mom can throw it and wait for her to tell me I can go after it.

Like I said, this camera is terrible, but you get the idea.

So we went walking along the river.  Mom let me get up on the other side of the chain, but it was a long ways down to that water!  Then we found an Indian.  He was pretty cool, even if he was a statue.

Then we found the best thing of all!  A fountain!  I got up on the edge of it and walked around, I took a sniff and oops!  I fell in! Mom laughed and laughed at me, but I thought it was fun, I could have gone swimming there!  She got me back out though.

Then sadly we got back on the road again.  I was pretty tired after all that running, so I was happy to go to sleep while she drove.  That’s the nice thing about being the dog.  I get to sleep while mom drives.  Although she likes driving, mom says she’d like to take the train like she used to in Europe, then she can rest too.  But anyway, we drove across Illinois.  It’s really different from where we’ve been all week.  Mom says she loves the trees and everything we saw this last two weeks.

Before we knew it, we were in Iowa.  From there, it wasn’t far until we were at our house and training center.  I was happy to be able to go outside in the backyard and this evening, the other dog mom is training came back to the training center too, so I was happy to play with her too.  But I really will miss traveling.

I got to see so much! As mom’s friend said, it really helps you expand your horizons and helps you to know yourself.

And of course, I love all my pins I got while traveling!  I’ll have to get mom to take a picture of them and post them.  Next time we go though, mom is going to have to find or make a see through pouch for them.  They were too easy to lose.  We managed not to lose any permanently, but a few times we had to hunt for them and we did lose a few of the backs for them, so we’ll have to find some replacements.  Anyway, I’ll post pictures of them as soon as I can!

Traveling was so much fun.  Both mom and I really learned a lot about ourselves.  I learned to love escalators.  I walked like a pro across grates.  And I so loved seeing so many new things, not to mention so much to hear and so many smells!  I hope we do this again soon.

Finally, here’s the map of today’s travels.

So we got up this morning and went to see mom’s friend’s horse.  They had hoped to go riding, but unfortunately her trainer had taken the bridle home so all they got to do was go see her.  She’s huge!  A big Percheron, Morgan cross.  I’ve seen a few horses before but none as big as her.

Then we got back on the road again.  Continuing on through Michigan.  We stopped briefly in Battle Creek to see the Kellogg Discovery Center, but found that it had closed for the season.  So we decided to go on to the second place that lady at the Welcome Center had recommended – the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo.

Mom says she loves flying but I’ve never been on a plane in the air so I don’t know.  We’ve never traveled anywhere until this trip, but apparently she used to fly quite often – though she says sadly that it’s been many years since then.  Her real interest was the space stuff though.

We walked in and the first thing we saw was this OLD pilot.  Look closely at the picture and you’ll see what I mean.  There wasn’t much to smell, but lots to look.  Mom got a tour and learned a lot about the planes.

She was very interested to find out that the mural on the wall is the largest the world.  The artist even included himself and his father in the mural.  In the picture, the service man on the right is the artist and the one on the left his father.

We also got to go on a DC-3.  This is where I really started to get interested.  Getting to go on things and look closely and smelling them is so much more fun than to look at them from the other side of a rope.  This was great!

There have been 6 astronauts from Michigan so the space section is very important to the Air Zoo.  We found a huge engine used to put some of the early astronauts into space.  That’s one big engine! And a model of the Space shuttle Discovery. And got to try out some of the things that astronauts have to do while weightless.  Mom even got to play a game trying to dock to the International Space Station.  She did pretty well. Although it was a long time before my time, mom remembers the Challenger accident very well.

Next we got back on the road again. And soon we were back in Indiana.  It’s been two weeks since we were first in this state.

We didn’t stay long though!  Soon we were back in Illinois.  We’re staying tonight in Joliet.  Mom says we’ll be home tomorrow.  It will be great to see our house and run in the yard, but I will miss all this traveling!

We wandered around the campus a bit and I got a new pin from the bookstore!  Mom said it was too bad the only classes at the Robotics Institute were later in the day – she’d have liked to attend another one. She really wished we could stay until Friday as there are several interesting presentations being given that day.  But alas, it’s time we started heading for home.  I’m going to really miss this traveling when we get home, but at least that’s still a few days away!

So when she finally was able to tear herself away from CMU, we got back in the car and started driving.  We’ve been in Pennsylvania 3 days now and mom keeps saying how beautiful it is.  I think she likes it here.  But it really is time to start heading for home.

First, however, we’re going to Michigan to see her friend we went to the Equestrian Games with.  Her friend has a new horse and wants to show her off.  So mostly all we did today was drive.

I’m getting used to this border thing.  Today we passed through two: Ohio and Michigan.  Unfortunately we didn’t really get to see anything in Ohio, but the scenery out the window and a couple of rest stops.

Then we drove into Michigan.  Mom stopped at the Welcome Center and I got to walk around a bit and play on the grass!  The lady inside was really helpful and gave us some ideas of where we might go tomorrow.

Oh remember those tunnels I told you about.  Well I got pictures of them.  They are kinda weird things you know, cutting holes out of mountains.  Mom still laughs about the mountains – they are not nearly as high or as steep as she’s used to from when she lived in Utah.

I got a few more pictures as we drove through the mountains and down toward Pittsburgh. It was pretty foggy as you can see in some of the pictures.

When we got into town we drove around a while looking at the Carnegie-Mellon campus.  It’s nestled well into Pittsburgh and the University of Pennsylvania is not far away.  Mom decided to find a library and try to get a map or something of the campus and look again at the Robotics Institute website.  Wow was parking expensive!  Mom was shocked at how much it cost.  We spent more on parking than anything else this day except lodging and gas.

We made our way back to campus and parked in the nearby parking garage for the Museum of Natural History.  We wandered around for a bit until she found someone who could point us in the right direction and we finally found the office of the Robotics Institute.

While we were there we were invited to attend a class that was being held on Mobile Robot Design.  It turns out that this class is making a Lunar Lander and Rover as part of the Google Lunar Xprize competition.  Mom was fascinated to participate in the class and listen to what they are doing toward completion of the project to be launched in 2013.  She spoke with the professor, Red Whitaker, for a little while after the class.  She didn’t know anything about the project before and was really interested in what the students are doing.

Of course everyone loved me and that’s what I think is really important.  I was good and was just laying quietly through most of class.

So what will we do tomorrow and where will we go?  I can’t wait to find out!

We left the hotel near Philadephia this morning.  Mom just wanted to drive around through some of the back roads of Pennsylvania.  She thought it was beautiful!  The map at the end of this post isn’t really accurate as she didn’t keep track of all the places we went, so it’s just a general idea of where we went. Here’s some pictures we took of the beautiful area we were driving through.

Eventually mom decided we better continue on even though it was absolutely beautiful here.  We got on the freeway and I started to notice changes.  There started to be more open fields as we headed west. I wish I could have gotten out and romped and played but we didn’t find any parks or anything and she was just wandering through roads generally heading north.

So we started to head west.  Mom says it’s time to start heading toward home unfortunately.  So we drove a ways, then

This stuff looks yummy

she decided to stop and see one of the sweetest places on earth, Hershey, Pennsylvania!  Wow was this place fun!  As you drive into town one of the first things you see is their welcome sign.

I got to ride my very first amusement park type ride.  I wasn’t quite sure what to do, we got in this “car” (well that’s what mom called it, but it wasn’t like any car I’d ever been in before) and it took us through this “factory” showing us how chocolate is made.  I was so excited!  I kept looking around at everything and couldn’t sit still.  I couldn’t get pictures of everything, but I know you want to see the highlights. Boy did this stuff look yummy!

After the chocolate factory tour, we went to the shop.  We didn’t find a pin for me, but we found LOTS of chocolate.  Mom even found the World’s Largest Hershey’s Bar, but she didn’t buy one.  We had to hurry because it was kinda late in the day and mom wanted to take a tour of Hershey and learn some of the history.  So I got my first trolley ride!  Mom says it wasn’t like a real trolley because it was not on tracks, but it looked like a trolley!  The tour guide was really good and he told us all about the town and how Hershey had built it.  Mr. Hershey did a lot of good things here, it was pretty amazing.  He built houses for his workers and sold them at cost so everyone would have a house.  He and his wife couldn’t have children so they started a school for orphans which is now open to disadvantaged children.  It has an amazing statue in front of their founder’s hall.  All of the children live in houses on campus with a 9-13 other children and “parents” whose full time job is to care for the children providing them with the love and attention they need to do well.  Mom thought it was pretty amazing what they do their.

We also got to see Hershey’s mansion that he built for his wife.   It was beautiful and is now used by Hershey’s execs.  He also built many other houses, a community center, and lots of other things needed in a town.  The cultural center brings in many major productions every year.  Of course also a garden and a memorial garden.

Oh and don’t let me forget about the lightest chocolate in the world!  They must give off the best light, chocolate light!  Mom laughs and says yes but when the lights go out, it’s dark chocolate.  That must be really yummy, mom loves dark chocolate.  She still won’t let me have any though. But at least I got a picture with the bag.

Everything closed there at 5pm, so we got back on the rode and headed on towards Pittsburg.

By the time it got dark we started driving through the mountains again and mom started looking for a place to stop.  We kept driving through these things called tunnels.  They were kind of like the tunnels in the Metro except there were a lot of lights and we were in our own car instead of on the train.  I thought they were cool though.  We didn’t get a picture, but maybe we will tomorrow.  Mom says there are still more to go through.

We stopped for the night at a rest area.  Mom said she was too tired and the signs in the rest stop said that the nearest hotel was 80 miles away.  Mom had packed stuff for camping so we just camped in the car.  I don’t think it’s going to be very comfy but we’ll see. As you might guess the map below isn’t right again since we didn’t make it all the way to Pittsburg, but I don’t know exactly where we stopped. Mom says the maps are good because they show where we’ve been and how to get where we’re going.  Well as long as it works for her.  She’s the one driving while I get to ride and look out the window and sleep.  But all this traveling is fun!