Davis, CA

Today we drove from Oakdale, CA, to Davis, CA.  We passed many fruit tree farms, and mountains covered with brown grass and trees. 

Our plan was to meet up with two friends who both happen to be at the University of California at Davis.  Davis is a cute town that reminds me of Urbana, IL, except it happens to be in California.  There are lots of cute little local shops.  Recently they got a Whole Foods, so Geoff and I went there to wait for our friend Patricia. 

We met Patricia in grad school at the U of I where she was working on a master's degree in soil science and we were all involved in GCF.  She was working in Africa for a while, but had to leave because of the ebola, and now she is back in California, working for her alma mater as a lab manager and researching fertilizer for various crops.  Currently she is finding all the research on fertilizer for potatoes. 

It was a lot of fun to see Patricia!  We went to the arboretum that runs along the south side of campus.  There were cute ducklings!

There were also redwood trees!

Then we walked around the University of California at Davis. This is the library.  It is a very modern and ugly building. 

This is the library egghead.  There are eggheads all over campus.  This one is reading a book.  As you can see, the book is very fascinating.  The eggheads in front of the law school are arguing.  There are two eggheads in front of the fine arts building.  One is singing, and one is dying.   

Then Patricia showed us a strange building called "The Death Star."  It is a very confusing building where sometimes you have to go up to go down, and visa versa, and students are easily lost.   

 By this time, it was lunch time, so we went to meet our other friend, Tara, for lunch.  I knew Tara in college, and we were also involved with GCF in grad school.  Tara and Patricia had never met each other, because Tara graduated about three months before Patricia arrived.  However, they definitely have a lot of mutual friends!  We went to a place called Crepeville that both of them had recommended, and it was good!  I like crepes, and these were nice savory crepes.  They also had an excellent side salad or delicious herb-covered potatoes.  It was good to catch up with Tara.  She is finishing a PhD in nutrition science, and will be doing a post doc at a hospital in Sacramento in the fall.  

After lunch, we planned to go to Lake Berryessa and the Putah Creek Nature Preserve on Pat's recommendation.  She had never actually been there, but she had heard good things about it and hoped to bike there some day.  However, that experience deserves a blog post in itself.