The Caltech campus is quite pretty. This was a surprise for me: I half-expected no-nonsense robots, with no time to admire the scenery and smell the flowers. It reminds me of Harvard: I assume the builders were going for the same sort of British university feel, trying to recreate that ancient academic tradition in a country that's hardly two hundred years old. Although Caltech is white and cheery to Harvard's green-gray stony dampness.
The green also reminds me of my years at Penn State. Between College Ave and Old Main, there is a stretch of broad sidewalk fully shadowed by these towering ancient elms, with green lawns stretching unbroken to either side. Underneath these massive trees you always felt completely cloistered from the noise of the gray world... it's a physical manifestation of the uncomplicated intellectual peace of academia.
It seems to me that astronomy departments at every university host a telescope dome on the roof of their building. You can't use them for science since the surrounding universities and cities cast far too much light pollution. But you can use them for teaching, and I honestly like them most just for the idea that astronomy didn't start with people in offices, toiling before computers... it began with the romance of a night alone with glass and stars.
Back in Tucson tonight, then to Womelsdorf tomorrow...
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