Dear Folks (Happy Birthday, Ma!),

It’s nice to hear that you’ve been getting up to Squam again, but I don’t see why you talk as if this last week-end were the last. Why not keep going occasionally? Don’t let G.S. tie you down!

The situation out here hasn’t changed much as far as I’m concerned except for the purchase of a car, coincidentally an almost exact duplicate of Persephone and in at least as good shape so far as my first 500 miles have been able to determine. Over the long week-end I drove south and explored the Monterey Bay region from the Santa Cruz Mountains to Big Sur, well south of Carmel. It’s mostly very pretty country especially in the mountains, the ravines of which are filled with redwoods except in the drier areas inland and south. Though this region is near the southern limit of the redwoods’ range, some of the trees are of maximum size—close to 20′ in diameter and well over 300′ high. Those in Big Sur, however, have a mere 8½ ⨉ 200+ as a maximum. The best groves happily are set aside as State parks, as is also true of some of the nicer groves of Monterey cypress. The best of the latter are privately owned, but opened to the public and seen to advantage from a famous seventeen-mile drive along the shore. That’s in the Carmel-Monterey region, a famous resort area.

Well, I hope to be detached from the squadron by the end of this week and from the separation center, also here, in a few days more. Of course I’d like to take in a few sights on the way home, but am a little up in the air about everything, especially suddenly electing advanced biology courses at some university not having cracked a biology book in years. It would be easy to bite off not only more than I’d like to chew, but more than I could chew—and where to go? The Univ. of Wash. catches my eye now.

Love to All & H.B. to Ma.

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