Oh what great joy to visit my son’s college campus on our “private family weekend”. Ben was a wonderful tour guide, cordial and helpful. He filled our parking meter with just the right amount of change to get the sixty minute tour which was just the right amount of walking for this old goose.
For weeks, Ben has been sending me text messages with pictures of his lake on campus. I haven’t heard of too many college campuses with their own lake. This lake is creatively named, Campus Lake. As a waterfowl, I was very excited to head there directly. And believe me, it’s more beautiful in person than my Silly Pix camera can capture. And yet I tried…
Ben would like to live in the dorm across the lake for next year…
Mother Goose loved the large lily pads on Campus Lake.
It seemed to Mother Goose that some of the architecture of the department specialty buildings reflected the nature and personality of the distinct disciplines.
The Engineering Building
Wham! Educational Building
And then there are the classic designs which we might expect from a college chartered in 1869.
The iconic clock tower with quarter-hour Westminster chimes
A campus castle behind the canna
Shryock Auditorium
The Morris Library is a much more modern structure than the others, and named for former university president, DeLyte Morris. Mother Goose just loves that name! They’ve named one of the cafeterias, DeLyte Lunchroom, in his honor and there’s a nice statue of him in one of the common areas near Shryock Auditorium.
The modern Morris Library
There’s a forest right smack in the middle of campus! It’s called the Thompson Woods, and there are signs at the entrances warning us not to enter the paths and the woods after dark. We did see a six-point white tail deer near Ben’s dorm on Friday night — he was just munching grass under a streetlight. Mother Goose nearly had a conniption — how exciting to see an antlered buck on a college campus!
I believe there may be a sasquatch somewhere on this woodsy campus.
We found an outdoor sculpture app entitled “Here” and it was so very reminiscent of Stonehenge. The college seems to have an Egyptian theme — their mascot is the Saluki (a long-haired Egyptian canine) and there are allusions to pyramids and Sphinxes here and there around the campus. But Stonehenge? Hmmmm…..
Possibly the sun would align with these mini-monoliths at certain days and times…
Well, who is that goose peeking out from behind the sculpture?
Yes, it was a lovely tour. And it ended all too soon with the “goodbye” session near Ben’s eighteen story tower dormitory. My tall and handsome college man walked away, thinking of many things: the good family fun we enjoyed, the five-page paper that would be due in the morning, the 100 pages of reading he had to do by Tuesday.
We all loved our visit with Ben! Not ALL of us got a piggyback ride though…
We pointed the goosemobile north and headed for home, hearts full of love for our Ben and our family time together. Blessings and happy faces to you from your friend, Mother Goose!
Mother Goose Smiles 