Day 10: Double Potions with the Slytherins

We awoke with the alarm clock at 7.15am, and immediately slapped it silent and went back to sleep. This is probably a good sign that we are growing acclimated to the Pacific time zone. Unfortunately, the alarm went off again a few minutes later, and so we decided we might as well get up and get on the road. It's not like we had far to go -- from Merced up to Palo Alto is less than a two hour drive, even if you take it as slowly and carefully as we did.

Neither of us was entirely sure this was real. Could we really be almost there? Do we, in fact, have any proof that Stanford University exists at all? That it's something more than just a grand prank by the Guild of Matte Painters? A conspiracy of cartographers, perhaps?

But, by and by, we turned the trusty Cutlass Ciera onto the broad lanes of El Camino Real in Palo Alto, and followed the webwork of signs leading us to the Stanford University campus. It wasn't long thereafter that we arrived at David's new home, Crothers Memorial Hall (CroMem, for short). The rest of the afternoon was consumed in trying to finding our way around campus in enough detail to get David a student ID and a parking permit for the car.

Tomorrow we'll go up into San Francisco, but there is no denying that our long journey is effectively at an end. We are both somewhat amazed to be here, almost 4200 miles from the place we began only ten days ago.

Damn, we're tired.

We started our morning by tilting at windmills. These are a bit more difficult than the type Don Quixote was famous for pursuing, even at the best of times. These, however, brought reinforcements. We were forced to beat a hasty retreat.

After a bit of a traffic jam getting around the end of the bay, we finally got to within striking distance of Palo Alto, the town immediately adjacent to Stanford University.

"Wow," said David. "We're really here at last."

Michael tsked. "Don't go jumping to any rash conclusions; we haven't gotten there yet. This could still be the work of the Matte Painters' Guild."

Apparently, Palo Alto takes both its traffic laws and its decency laws very seriously.

"I'm going to make a right, darling." "Honey! Don't turn right on red! Think of the children!" (covers child's eyes, scandalized). "I'm sorry sir, but I'm going to have to fine you $281 for turning right on red while children were present."

With all these palm trees, we weren't sure whether we were at Stanford University, or someplace in the south Pacific.

Only decency prevents me from making a joke about palm reading at this point in time.

Crothers Memorial Hall, the new West Coast office of the Society for Creative Procrastination. This building is a surprising three stories high (unusual, to say the least, for buildings around here).

Donated in the late 50's by a Stanford alumnus of the late 1800's in memory of his deceased mother, CroMem has been home to generations of engineering students.

Here's David, putting his room keys onto his key ring.

This is the room before we moved into it all the stuff we carted across the entire country in the back of the car.

There's a good deal less free space now, although the room is still quite reasonably sized for one person.

The west-facing windows provide a goodly amount of light, once the blinds have been opened.