Since Miss Buccola was not feeling well, we did not go to the city of San Francisco today. Instead, we were using our time to familiarize ourselves with the campus and it’s students. There was not much I did, besides lay in bed and catch up on Netflix and tire myself from doing homework. It was good that I had this excess of time because it let me do work, and explore dirt trails in one section of the campus. The rigid path was not kind to my ankle, but it led me to the sports trainer who wrapped my ankle with a stabilizer gauze wrap and a flexible sling. I’m grateful to get help because if not, I wouldn’t have been able to do much at all besides loathe in my own pain.

The path that lead to the area near the pool forked and led me to a secondary path towards the tennis courts and strayed up a harsh hill to the monastery. Yes, I got my shoes wet from dragging my feet along the rain soaked grass blades, but it took less time than going from the pool, to the Schilling Square, then up to the robotics lab, and up the street to the monastery. It took around half an hour through the glorious darkness of the redwoods with small peeks through the trees of the valley to get to where we needed to stop for lunch.

The mountains in the back were covered with redwoods and I could swear at that moment, it seemed like there were more trees in my sight than in the whole state of New Jersey. It is almost as if power lines don’t exist in Portola Valley, and although I was gazed into the woods, I quickly snapped out of it once we stopped at a deli. The sandwiches were great, but the view from the outdoor standing table was better.

The redwoods stood there basking in the sunlight. About another half an hour, we arrived at the shores of the Pacific Ocean. After touching the water, my hands dried and kept its smoothness from the salt the ocean offers.

We had just made it for sunset. Mr. Duffy had already pulled out his stuffed animals

for pictures, and we all were there in the moment with the Earth and listening to its waves come down violently which made the perfect calming sounds. Standing atop a boulder, we all shared the moment in taking pictures. Duffy was also knee-deep in the Pacific, and it must have been around forty minutes that we were standing there because it felt like twenty. We were trapped in the natural natural beauty. Why were sunsets more dramatic in California? We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant and returned to the school grounds in a calming head space. Anyone could imagine that we all slept well that night.