Annual trip to Los Angeles

Around graduation time, I always take a trip back to my old grad school, Caltech, in Pasadena.

At the time, the weather in Seattle was really dreary. So, the first photo I took was right outside the Long Beach Airport. Look, it's the sky! Isn't it beautiful? I missed the LA sun.


The next day, I drove to my cousin Kristen's place. It was past 9 pm. And, of course, I got caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic! That's one thing from LA that I did not miss.


At Caltech's Commencement, I still knew a couple of the graduates. In the center is Paul Lee, now a chemist with a Ph.D.!




I went with a couple of friends to the city of Glendora, which is an hour east of Caltech. Glendora is known mostly for the "Donut Man" shop, which is a bit of a Caltech icon. Sure enough, at the Donut Man I ran into my friend Habib, who had driven all the way from Caltech! Strawberry donuts: Mmm!!




Kristen and her husband Mike let me stay at their place for a few days. One night I really wanted a Thai ice, so we went out for dessert. We tried a place that had not only shaved ice but also something they called a "snowy." I think it was frozen condensed milk. (This can be quite different from simply adding condensed milk to shaved ice, it turns out.) In the picture, I'm pouring either brown sugar or maple syrup on my snowy. I forget which, but I remember that it was tasty.

Kristen and Mike. They ordered a mango snowy.










I really liked the mango snowy. I think my association of mangoes with healthy eating helped me like it even more. That could be a bad thing.








Toward the end of my trip, I had lunch near Caltech with my friend Cynthia. Afterward, Cynthia and I were walking through Caltech and stopped at one of the ponds with turtles in it. Then the funniest thing happened. There was a turtle about 10 feet away, and it swam right toward us. It came all the way to the corner where we were.

Then, the turtle tried to climb the walls of the pond! It was either trying to get out of there . . . or get to us! The turtle seemed to be gravitating toward me and not Cynthia.

We first thought the turtle might be hungry, but we later changed our minds.

Look! It's looking right at me!

From Trip to LA

Cynthia and I decided it must be the color of my T-shirt, which was a bright neon green.

Did the turtle think I was its mother, or . . . ?

We may never know.