Tag Archives: College Road Trip

On the road again

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Rupert
Rupert

College hunting season has begun. I spent two days plotting our strategy for visiting 8 colleges in 4 days in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New York. Yesterday morning we left Bethesda, drove north, dropped Clare off at Sarah Lawrence (where she gave Andrew a mini tour of the campus), then drove to Rocky Hill, Connecticut where we spent the night in a Hampton Inn. Today we will visit Wesleyan in Middletown and Connecticut College in New London before heading to Massachusetts.

Andrew has been texting friends, many of whom are visiting the same colleges we’re visiting, only in a different order.

It is raining and is supposed to rain harder this afternoon. Not the best way to see colleges, but it is spring, after all.

Rupert has come with us, he’s hoping to visit Rupert, Vermont if we can fit it in and maybe taste some Rupert Rising Bread.

Day 10 — A final tour and then home!

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We arrived at Allegheny College a little after 10 am. We walked into an empty admissions office, but were soon greeted warmly by the receptionist who took Clare’s information and then got a tour guide for us.  While we waited another woman walked in and welcomed us to the campus.

Our tour guide, Dan — an elementary school major and Dylan fan, was friendly and knowledgeable (except for the fact he didn’t know about Dan Bern). Clare liked the campus — it has a lot of trees and, while not Gothic, the architecture is attractive. The school contains a building that is considered the second best example of Federalist Architecture (after Constitution Hall in Philadelphia).

After our tour, we headed home. Clare was hungry, but said she could wait a while because I wasn’t. Bad idea. We ended up having to wait a couple of hours because:

  1. I got lost
  2. The PA turnpike doesn’t have very many service plazas
  3. I was in the wrong lane for the first service plaza
  4. I didn’t want to get off the turnpike in case I got lost again

We eventually stopped at the Somerset Plaza and ate at Pizzeria Unos.

After being refreshed by food (albeit fast, salty, greasy, bad-for-you food) we pointed our GPS to home. Everything went well until Breezewood, where I should have turned off the GPS because I neglected to look at signs and ended up back on the turnpike after just having exited it. We traveled another 18 miles towards Harrisburg and got off the Turnpike, only to be taken on winding, hilly roads that the locals thought were racetracks. The trouble with the roads were that I’d be going up a hill and not know if it wound around to the right or left until I was at the top. I didn’t want to go the 60 mph that the locals seemed wanted to, so I had a couple of angry drivers on my tail for several miles.

One road took us way up a mountain and back down. At that point we decided we were glad we made a wrong turn because the views were spectacular.

The GPS eventually got us back on the main roads, and we arrived home around 6:30 pm to a delicious meal of baked salmon, salad and mashed potatoes, cooked by Dean and Andrew.

It is great being home, but I would not have missed this experience for anything. It was wonderful spending so much time with my daughter. She’s a delight. She’s compassionate, gracious, talented and smart. Any college would be lucky to have her as a student.