After a fabulous breakfast at The White Spot, a culinary mecca in Charlottesville. I headed to the Spanish Dept. My first contact was with Zac, a supercool grad student who gave me the “scoop” on UVA. After that I went to see Prof. Andrew Anderson. One would think that after visiting 11 universities I would have become more comfortable talking to these emminences grisses, but no, I choke up, blabber, stutter, and mumble like a kid in the headmaster’s office. Despite the fact that he was really nice, understanding and patient, considering I just walked into his office in what we used to denominate in the business world a “cold call”.

The campus is really head and shoulders. The students super nice, an undergrad basically walked me to the Student Center, way out of her way. And Charlottesville is a village, but a really cool village.

From there I backtracked to the legendary Blue Ridge Mountains, to the historical Shenandoha National Park, to the epic Skyline drive, basically a road that runs over 100 miles on the crest of the mountains in the park. Breathtaking is a literal description of the ride. Throw in three deer conspiring against me by crossing the road in front of me and it becomes double breathtaking. It took me three hours to cover the 100 miles. Rocinante and  I where thrilled and loved this end of college visits treat.

From there it took an hour to DC, where due to rush hour traffic it took another hour to do a quarter of the ring road. Then it was a straight blast to Mark Miller’s Upper West Side apartment, where in his classic hospitable style I had a huge and delicious Greek salad waiting for me. Mark, you are the man!