Day 7: Monday: Stanford, Sportvision, & San Francisco

Started the day with the Discover Stanford program, a 2-1/2 hour tour and information session. The campus was beautiful and we had a day to match. Stanford has the second largest college campus in the world [Moscow University is first]. Sad story behind the founding...the full name is Leland Stanford Jr. University. Leland Jr. died before the age of 16 of typhoid while traveling with his parents in Europe; on his deathbed he asked his father to take care of the children of California since he would no longer have a son. Leland Sr. and his wife Jane founded Stanford in 1891.





Our tour guide was another Mike, who came to Stanford to study engineering but left with a degree in international relations. Unlike other tours, this one concentrated primarily on academic opportunities with some but not a lot of commentary on student life. Josh was right at home in his Stanford shirt, and after the tour we found a huge and excellent cafeteria for lunch...and of course, ate outdoors again.





After lunch we took a quick drive through Palo Alto, which is a vibrant community in its own right. And what would a college town be without a great revival film house?



Then back to Mountain View to stop in the Sportvision offices. Josh got a quick tour, met a bunch of folks, then spent some time talking colleges, physics and nanotechnology with our Chief Scientist Rick Cavallaro, holder of about a dozen patents and UCLA alum, and Ryan Ismert, one of our resident rocket scientists. They offered excellent advice including, much to my satisfaction, that Josh should make sure he gets a well-rounded education and that he should learn to write as well as he can because the best engineers are all good writers too! And I didn't even pay them to say that.



We left Sportvision around 3:30 and cruised up the 101 to San Francisco. Made a wrong turn so altered our original plan. We passed by AT&T Park where the Giants play, swung around the Embarcadero past the renovated Ferry Terminal and on to Fisherman's Wharf, and into the Marina District where we parked at Crissy Field for views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge...and the windsurfers and kitesurfers who were out in the Bay.





Finally, we crossed over a couple of steep hills, passed through Chinatown, and parked by Union Square for dinner at Scala's Bistro, which is always good and atmospheric...



...and a look at the cable cars going up and down Powell Street to the Wharf and back.



We thought for a minute about taking one, but it was getting late and we still had to get over the Bay Bridge to Berkeley and check into our hotel.

Tomorrow is UC Berkeley at 10, then to SFO in plenty of time, we hope, to deal with security for our 4:00 flight home. It's been a long trip.