Last night in Pasadena

Today I dropped my son at his summer research gig at UCLA. It was hard! I'll be all the way across the country from him and although he is independent and very mature I feel like a piece of me is going to be sitting here in California on a very long thread.

It was a crazy hot day here. The iPad in our hotel room looked like this when I got home from UCLA:

I am intrigued with all those 1's but not with regards to the temperature!

Once back at the hotel I felt what Virginia Woolf called being able to see to the bottom of the vessel. There is an emptiness about leaving a child somewhere, even when it's a good and wonderful thing he's doing. The room felt sad without him. I retreated down to the hotel bar for a burger and a gin/tonic.

Sitting here I kept thinking about how it feels to fly back home and leave him here. I glanced out and saw this:

A big sunbeam. Okay. That made me feel better.

It's been an honor and a privilege to share this time with him. And now I have a night to myself before flying home to November Hill and my amazing daughter, the menagerie, and a husband who has taken care of everything while I've been gone.

Life is good. November Hill, I'll see you tomorrow!

More Caltech and meetings with friends

A little more time at Caltech today and lunch and dinner with friends. Best way to wind down this trip!

Love this outside the elevators in the physics building:

And love the walkway underneath laden citrus trees between physics buildings:

The skies are so much clearer today and it feels more like the Southern California I remember. 

Butterfly Beach, Santa Barbara yesterday and Caltech today

I'll write more about the beach later but this was a nice shot from our time there yesterday evening in Santa Barbara.

Today we drove to Caltech in Pasadena. The campus looked deceptively plain on the edges but once you walk into the campus proper it gets very magestic and yet friendly and navigable. Definitely in my top three campuses with Berkeley and UC-Santa Cruz.

My big excitement of the day was getting to meet Sean Carroll after my son's meeting with him. I've been reading his books about physics for the past couple of years and just started his newest, The Big Picture, which I'm loving. He's a terrific writer and a nice person. 

Meanwhile, the heat is rising in this part of the state. It's 93 today, 97 tomorrow, 101 on Sunday, and a whopping 105 on Monday, which will make it very easy to get up at 5 a.m. and head to the airport to fly home to November Hill. (Husband tells me it will be 95 there by Tuesday, but the air will be clean and I will have horses to hose!!) Temps are a bit milder in LA where son will be so hopefully he will start his summer research with ease.

Santa Barbara - a quick stop

We rolled into Santa Barbara last night after a beautiful drive down the Pacific coast highway through Monterey, Big Sur, Cambria, and then inland via 154, which was spectacular too. Horse farms, many huge fields of hay being baled, and mountains dotted with green trees which made me feel like I was driving in a novel. Not sure which one! But it was lovely.

Today we went to UC-Santa Barbara campus and I spent some time in the library. One side looks to the mountains, the other to the Pacific. It's quite a place. 

We went to the beach this evening and are now spending our last night here before heading out early tomorrow for Pasadena and Caltech.

The days are winding down for me - one more campus to go before I leave dear son at UCLA for the summer. I have enough photos and material to write weeks of blog posts when I get home! It's been a wonderful trip.

UC-Santa Cruz day 2 and end of day beach visit

Another great day on the UC-Santa Cruz campus. While dear son met with physics department faculty and grad students I wandered the campus and checked out libraries, the arboretum, and the biology building, where a recent graduate gave me a tour of the specimen collection. Drawers and drawers  and cupboards full of preserved specimens of every kind of bird imaginable. 

She spent nearly two hours with me letting me see all the birds they have. It was such a treat to see the collection but also a treat to meet a young woman so enthralled with her studies. She reminded me of my own two young adults. 

We ended the day with a walk at Natural Bridges State Beach. It was beautiful. Tomorrow we head down the coast to Santa Barbara.