It hit seventy degrees on Sunday afternoon.  Anne and I went for a bike ride in the Park.  We got fourteen miles.  This is the first time in almost a hundred days that the temperature made it to sixty let alone seventy degrees.

The Park was super crowded, so we just did a drive-by and headed to the Gardens.  This time both Anne and I got to see the orchid show at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.  We both took lots of pictures.  We toured the show and later the Garden.  Waltzing around in our bike duds, a woman asked us where we had ridden from.  When Anne gave her a landmark near the house, she exclaimed, “I thought that you must have ridden all the way from Colorado or something.”  If only that was true.

After the orchid show we toured the Garden’s grounds.  We saw definite signs of Spring, as the picture of Chinese Witch Hazel, as seen below, proves.  On the way home a cold front came through and the temperature dropped noticeably.  We stopped off at the DeMun Kaldis for a pair of steamed milk beverages.

Dave left for Cancun, Mexico on Sunday.  If anyone out their has cable, you might look for him on MTV’s Spring Break.  I hope that he uses plenty of sunscreen.

Dan leaves for LA on Monday, today.  We had dinner with Dan and Annie at Houlihan’s on Sunday evening.  He has a second interview at CalArts this week.  He brought some good news this last week, he and Annie have both been accepted by Claremont.  He’ll visit them also while he is out there.

Sunday night featured the Oscars.  Earlier I had perused the CalArts website and they were proudly announcing their alumni that were nominated for this year’s Academy Awards.  Most of the nominations were in conjunction with the movie, Up.  This is not too surprising.  CalArts was founded by Walt Disney.  Most of the artists that work at Pixar are alumni.  This begs the question, at a school that is so intertwined with motion picture animation, what role will a sculpture major have?  Claymation?

After dinner with Dan, I am way more impressed with his knowledge of how sculpture plugs and plays with the movie industry.  He knows the major houses and can spout their most recent projects.  I feel confident that he’ll do well out there.  He is eminently personable, self-confident and single-minded.  I wish him all the best out there.