College Road Trip

No, not the movie (not that I have seen it), but a family trip the last part of September for Meg and Charles (and their friend Emma) to look at some schools for their future plans.

Both Meg and Charles want to go into music education and be high school music teachers. The two main places the checked was Southern Oregon Univ. and Humbolt State Univ.

 Both are WUI schools, which means that they can be from out-of-state, but not have to pay the higher fees. They don't get in-state, but a split of the two... 1.5x the in-state. A really good deal. It is actually cheaper to be on WUI for 4 years than to do out-of-state for 2 and then in-state for 2. Plus being from Alaska they don't have to give up their residency which allows them to keep receiving the PFD (Permanent Fund Distribution) each year.

We flew into Portland, picked up our car and spent a couple of days in Portland. As we have done recently we rented a place while in Portland and Ashland. The kids visited Univ. of Portland, and Reid College. Emma looked at an art school too.  We experienced Powell's Book and VooDoo Donuts. They knew several people at Reid who were from Logan, so they hung out with them. Charles and I got to play golf.

Then we drove to Ashland, Oregon. On the way we went to Crater Lake. I had been there once before with my folks/brothers in 1975. Lori and the kids had not but were very impressed. When God makes something it is REALLY something!!

The music program at Southern Oregon looked pretty good, but the kids... and Lori and I thought the program and its resources was better at Humbolt. 

While in Ashland we took in a Shakespeare play as they have a 9 month festival. We saw "Comedy of Errors". We had some incredible weather too. At both So. Ore. and Humbolt the kid (and us) had tours given by current students on campus. 

 On the way to Arcata / Humbolt / Eureka, California the highway goes through some huge areas of redwoods. We got to see some HUGE trees.

 Makes you feel very small. 

In Arcata we drove around the area and enjoyed the views.  I played golf again in Arcata. Again great weather.

We finished off by driving to San Jose to fly home. On the way we drove the Avenue of the Giants in another redwood area.

End result: Meg will be heading to Humbolt next year and Charles the next year.