Since we were just two miles away from Hanover, New Hampshire, we decided to go there.

The main highway from Vermont leads to what looks like a town square, but it is really a square, or commons area, that appears to be surrounded on three sides by Dartmouth University and one side by commercial interests.

Where do we get our ideas of what something is supposed to look like? I have lived in California my entire life, and had never before been to New England, but I still had the feeling that this setting was the quintessential Ivy League College. The classic architecture, the trees and open lawn area, at this time of year, early October, strewn with leaves, the students wearing sweaters of muted colors . . . all combined in my perception to be an exemplary example.

What is interesting is that the students, if the clothes were altered a little, looked amazingly like the students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California, where fall means that the brown hills will soon turn green because of the return of the rain.

Had we not had so many more miles to go, we would have liked to haves spent more time in Hanover.