So, Clay and Nathanael were in the midst of a whirlwind prospective-California-colleges tour last week. Lucky for us, they also included a minor detour to Grass Valley (wedged between Fresno State and Chico) for a fun evening.Clay is a wonderful friend of ours from San Diego and my esteemed backpacking buddy. He plans 'em, I hike 'em. Most years, we manage one trip, the next one being scheduled for next month.
Nathanael is a senior this year, and he and Clay visited, oh, let's see, UCs Irvine, Santa Barbara and Davis, Cal Poly SLO, Fresno State, and Chico State in four days. Somehow, there was also time for quite a few miles driven and some visits with friends thrown in for laughs.
We did have time to hang out a bit, grab a bite at Posh Nosh, and eat some homemade strawberry ice cream. After dinner, Clay and I caught up with some chatter whilst Tom and Nathanael watched "Hurt Locker". It had come from Netflix some time before and I was glad for someone else to watch it with Tom. I just never seem to be in the mood for that sort of thing.
Then, in a blink, after a quick breakfast next morning, they were gone, down into the hot Sac Valley to catch the ambiance of Chico and then Davis, which was added to the itinerary at the last minute (when they were with us, actually). By means of Facebook yesterday, Nathanael told me he rather liked Davis the best. Funny
(his brother, Tyler, just finished his second year at San Francisco State as a film major).And since I only took the one photo of the Phillipses, I thought I'd add a few recent shots of my flowers for entertainment: the first is an ismene (new to me, too) that popped up a few weeks ago. I had forgotten I'd planted it last fall and had to go looking for the package to know what it was. A little surprise I gave to myself. The second is the third or fourth blooming of the oriental lilies that Dylan gave me for Mother's Day a few years ago. Amazing aroma! And the last photo is the disproportionate bloom of the succulent growing on a table in the patio. Also a surprise.
Hope everyone's keeping cool!
