Jake graduated from Willamette University with one degree in Biology and another in and Rhetoric Mass Communication. Quincy flew up for the ceremony and it was an excellent culmination of Jake's college career. The legendary Willamette Weather Machine worked its magic and the day was beautiful.
I flew up early to see Quincy's show in Ashland at Southern Oregon University, and both the set and the show were excellent. Jacob and I drove from Ashland to Salem, and we picked up Stu at the Portland Airport.
The rest of the weekend was also excellent. We had a last visit to the amazing Salem Farmer's Market with Jacob's friend Janelle and her sister. We found, in our last trip to Salem, one more wonderful restaurant, and also finally found a comfortable hotel. Here's hoping it wasn't really our last trip. Salem is a great town.
On Saturday, we had a surprise -- Jake needed help moving out of the dorms so we spent most of the rest of the reliving the ritual of moving out of an apartment. Lots of grime can accumulate in a couple of semesters, but he got mostly packed and cleaned and moved lots of stuff over to the Kappa Sigma house.
Graduation wasn't until Sunday afternoon, so on Sunday morning, Stu and I had a chance to visit Silver Falls, in the Cascades. Willamette hosted a trip to the Falls every year on Family Weekend. Despite attending 3 of the 4 weekends, Stu and I never made it there so we decided it was about time. Oregon has a pretty amazing system of state parks. The woods were beautiful, and the falls were too. These falls (below) might look familiar. Last time I was at the accupunture doc, I noticed that the poster on ceiling was of Silver Falls. I suspect similar photos appear in a lot of motivational-inspirational-beauty-etc. posters.
So the rest of the morning -- we got Quincy at the airport, headed back to Salem for Willamette's graduation brunch, then went off to the ceremony. We rounded out the day with dinner with Janelle's family.
So what was next for Jake?
He spent a week or so at the Kappa Sigma house doing some home improvement before driving back to Cruces for the summer. He spent a week in Hawaii with Janelle, then, in early August, headed up to Montana State University to work on a doctorate as a member of the Molecular Bioscience Program. Bozeman is a great town and Jake has some good time ahead of him.
The sun was setting as we took our last group shot on the Willamette Campus, in front of the famed Chicken Statue.
Congratulations to all the Willamette Class of 2012.
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