Easter Weekend

OK, so it’s already Wednesday night. So sue me.

We live in Palo Alto, and our daughter is in college down in Claremont. So we got in the car at the crack of dawn Friday and drove six hours. Fetched up in Claremont around noon and of course the kid was in chem lab until at least 5:30.

So we got some lunch, and walked around the campus a little, and then went up to the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, almost next door. Now for you who don’t know lovely Claremont, it’s at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, in what the Firesign Theater used to call the Fort Stinkindesert National Monument. There’s some water in the ground because of the mountains, but make no mistake, it’s desert country.

The center part of the gardens is irrigated, though, and last weekend it was wall-to-wall irises. With California poppies and all sorts of other wildflowers mixed in. It was truly gorgeous. When the desert blooms, there is nothing else like it. And it’s full of songbirds, while the college campus and the surrounding burbs are full of crows. Really.

We met our daughter and had supper in the college dorm. That’s all I have to say about that.

Saturday we drug the daughter back up to the Botanic Garden, and ventured past the irrigated part into the drier country. Saw the Crucifixion Thorn trees, no kidding, a strange sight. They look more like something out of Doctor Seuss than something from Mel Gibson. The songbirds were singing, and one in particular: a thrasher was sitting up on a tree top, singing his crazy head off. He’s a relative of the mockingbird, and sings just as loudly and sweetly, but a little less looney (those of you who have had a mockingbird sing outside their bedroom for the entire night will know what I’m talking about.

You can tell a thrasher when you see him (if his singing leaves any doubt) because he has a long beak that curves sharply downward. When he feeds, he thrashes the ground with the tip of his beak to dislodge little edible things.

Then our daughter had to work, so we jumped back in the car and, in a striking act of madness, drove to Joshua Tree National Park to see what was in bloom there. Answer, yucca trees and joshua trees and thousands of tiny wildflowers. Even more wonderful than the Botanic Gardens, because no one planted any of it.

That evening, a movie — a special treat for a college freshman with no car. We saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I tell you, you should see it. If you don’t like it, well, it’s my fault for telling you to see it. But I’m telling you.

Sunday we went to Easter brunch at the Mission Inn in Riverside, one of those only-in-Southern-California places that is 70 or 80 years old and yet looks like they built it two years ago for a movie set. We stuffed ourselves til our eyeballs bubbled, dumped our daughter back at college, and drove six hours straight to Palo Alto where we could sleep in our own bed.

So that amounted to six hours in the car every day for three days straight, plus doing stuff every day. Monday I was tired and Tuesday I came down with a virus where I felt like I was fixin to die. But Wednesday I was OK again, go figure.

So that’s how come I’m telling you about Easter weekend on the Wednesday after.