FRESNO
Our son, Kirk, was home from UC San Diego for the weekend. Today I took him as far as Bakersfield so he could catch a ride south with his housemate.

Observation: The Sierras are beautiful with their new snow caps.

On the way home I stopped in Fresno to tour Mennonite Brethren Seminary where my colleague Dan Whitmarsh is a student. The seminary shares a campus with Fresno Pacific University. I hadn't been on campus for over 25 years so I was surprised at how things have developed. It's so garden-like and there are so many well placed fountains that it creates a peaceful feeling pretty much wherever you are on campus. Big trees. Lots of big trees. Beautiful. FPU is a little gem in the center of the Central Valley.

Fresno itself is a great place. Certainly it's been the brunt of many California jokes for years. And certainly it's not San Francisco. But in it's own way it is an unusual cultural crossroads in an unusual place. The ethnic diversity of Fresno is very apparent everywhere you go -- Hispanics, African Americans, Southeast Asians, Armenians, and even a few Euro-descenters (we are the ethnic minority in California!). They also have one of the largest (and most respected) universities in the California State University system.