Are We There Yet?

Not yet. We’re still wandering around this beautiful campus looking for the art museum.

These streets are not streets; they are simply beautifully designed and maintained brick walkways which students can march down ten abreast and not feel crowded.

It is not clear where the walkway goes but it is not to the parking lot of the art museum.

We’ll turn around here and hope not to back over any students or into the concrete posts that make it clear that we can’t drive any farther.

The map of the campus seems to say that the art museum is just over there a few car-lengths, but that looks like another walkway that hopes to be taken for a street. We know better by now.

Students and clusters of students are everywhere so it’s best to be very careful to swivel one’s head constantly and fast, because not only are there hundreds of them everywhere but they move fast into and out of the drivers’ path.

Oh, there. That big building must be the art museum. The map shows it just a few yards west of and a bit north of the stadium.

Wait, that’s small for a college stadium. Maybe it’s only for practice. Do colleges have special stadiums for practice? Or are they “stadia”?

It doesn’t matter because the name on that big building says, “School of Law.” They wouldn’t put art in a school of law, would they? The campus looks rich enough to have separate buildings for everything.

Here’s a good place to turn around.

Maybe we are too close to the southern end of the campus. The river is so close there that I’m pretty sure it’s at the end of it. The map doesn’t show any buildings south of the river.

Okay, north then.

We can turn left at the end of this block and the museum should be right there.

Oh, actually we can’t. That’s an apartment house, not a classroom building.

Maybe the campus is bigger than it looks on the map so we’ll go another block west.

Wait. That’s the street that is the boundary between the campus and the city. Those businesses on the other side are not part of the campus; they are ordinary stores.

We’ll have to turn around.

That student there should know where the art museum is.

“Excuse me. Can you direct me to the art museum?”

Pointing south (I knew it was south because it was midday and the shadows were in the right place), the student said, “See that gold-colored cone? It’s right there.”

Feeling rescued, I thanked her and headed for that odd structure.

It looked as if I would stay lost a while longer because the cone disappeared behind a wide, dark-colored brick building.

At least and at last, it did say on it, Art Center.

Surely there wouldn’t be both an art museum and an art center in the same neighborhood, would there?

All right, that must be it.

All over the campus, “Reserved Parking” signs were as numerous as the trees, so where is a stray visitor supposed to park?

Between the art center/museum is a small parking lot without any signs. Good, one space is empty.

I pulled in, then doubt sprang up—the building looked more like an apartment house than a classroom building.

I left before anyone caught me.

Another parking lot was over there, out of sight, behind the museum. Many spaces were empty.

I pulled in, seeing no threatening signs, and parked.

No one was around to ask for permission to leave my car there, so I tore off a strip of the campus map—it was only off the Internet—wrote on it where I would be, and rolled up my window on it.

As I approached the door of the right room inside, the last of the lunch was being wheeled away.

I was 20 minutes late. The speaker was well into her presentation.

The take-away from the talk: What a brilliant scholar!

The take-away from getting there: Hire an outfitter and a guide dog.