We made it to Caltech on schedule for the 2:00 PM campus tour.
Here's the Athenaeum, which is the faculty club/hotel at Caltech. Construction of the "Ath" was rushed in order to be completed by the date of Albert Einstein's first visit. Einstein ended up spending every third year at Caltech, and he'd stay at the Ath. The walk from there to classrooms and offices goes through the residential houses, so the students got to see him daily.
Here's our tourguide Marie telling us the Einstein story.
One of the seven residential houses. They have a system that sounds very similar to Rice's college system.
Nobody bothered to explain why there was a big gun outside this residential house..
Here's another view of that house's front door.
Inside a typical Page House dorm room. Marie is pointing out the elevated beds, which are apparently standard here. At Rice we had to build them custom and most students didn't bother.
The walls of the halls in Page House were covered with paintings. Here's one.
This terrible picture of Marie represents the time we spent in Page House's commons, listening to talk about the house system. She's in front of a TV and stereo rack, and the bricks are part of a huge open fireplace. There is no air conditioning in the common areas of the houses, and this was one of the few days a year when it was missed.
Here's one of the featured entertainments in the Page House commons.
There's another, and more lecturing from Marie.
Out in the sun again, here's a memorial garden.
Here's a plaque explaining the memorial garden. It's mounted to a rock.
The pond in the memorial garden.
Trooping through the Throop memorial garden.
This is the Millikan (as in oil drops) Memorial building, which houses the central library.
The lawn outside the Millikan. The sculpture in the pond was created by a student as an engineering project. Note the huge oak tree behind the pond. It's supposed to be one of the oldest, predating European settlement of the region.
Another view of the old oak. It's so big it needs steel props and cables to hold it up.
This auditorium building is called the Wedding Cake, because some undergrads decorated it that way the night before the scheduled unveiling.
A random view down a wooded sidewalk.
Julie posing in front of the wedding cake.
Here's the visual aid in the info session presented by the Admissions office after the tour. The Dec 1 date is wrong, it should say Jan 1. Later she wrote the estimated cost for last year, all inclusive: $29,100. And the average indebtedness due to financial aid loans on graduation: $9000 and change.
Here we're riding up in the elevator in the Millikan building. It's the tallest on campus (by 2X) at 9 stories.
Here's a view from the 9th floor window of the Millikan.
Here's another view. That's the wedding cake again, right of center. Mt. Wilson (home of Caltech's observatory) is in that range somewhere.
And another, toward downtown Pasadena I suppose.
Looking down on the wedding cake again.
A typical view inside the library.
We adjourned to the bookstore for souvenirs. Here's the clothing section.
There was a coffee shop attached to the bookstore, and we freeloaded on their shady patio for a while (and played with the digital camera).
Julie picked up this little book at the used book sale in the library.
Ellen learned how to shoot closeups of flowers with the digital camera.
Here's an extreme closeup. This flower is about 1.5 inches in diameter.
Sometimes extreme closeups can be disturbing.
Julie using Ellen's sunglasses to simulate antennae.
Here's Paul relaxing in the shade.
Ellen grabbed this refrigerator magnet at the campus store.
These trees with the purple flowers had a strong scent.
Dinner at Tony Roma's. Julie is waiting for everyone to make it out of the restaurant.
Here comes Ellen.
Julie is waiting for everybody to make it to the car.
Then we jumped in and drove to Santa Barbara. I didn't get any pictures of us sticking our toes in the (cold) waters of the Pacific. Maybe tomorrow morning.
Copyright 1999 Paul Williamson