Before Thomas began his senior year, we opted to take a trip out West to visit a number of west coast schools in which he had an interest, including Stanford, California-Berkeley, UC Davis, Caltech and UCLA. We flew into San Francisco airport on an early morning flight and drove out to Stanford, which we had visited a year before with Alex. We had a late breakfast at a local coffeehouse, then toured the campus on our own before attending an informational session. Thomas walked away with little interest in Stanford, effectively striking it off his college choice list. After a night in a hotel near Palo Alto, we struck out the next morning for Berkeley before driving to Davis and then down to Los Angeles.
