We had an unusual Saturday run today, since Ira's leg has been hurting a bit, so we had to take a few days off. I feel a bit bad about this, since I'm sort of the cause of his injury: I bumped into him last run. Oops.
OK, I need to rant a bit about the alphabetical ordering of the "Hoover" buildings. There are five listed on the map, and the order is totally jumbled up. The map lists them like this:
1. Hoover Memorial Building, Hebert
2. Hoover House, Lou Henry
3. Hoover Bldg., Lou Henry
4. Hoover Pavilion
5. Hoover Tower
So many things are wrong. Why in what alphabet does "house" come before "building"? Why the need to use an abbreviation for "building"? And, that building is actually called the "Lou Henry Memorial Building", so why does Hebert deserve the word "memorial" and Lou Henry does not? Heck, the buildings are almost identical, and share a courtyard. And, of course, we must question why some buildings on the map are alphabetized by the first name, whereas here the first name is just tacked on, after a comma.
Anyways, we first ran to the Lou Henry Hoover House, which is the private home of Stanford president John Hennessy. He's a nice guy; I've taught his kids, and Ira knows him from working at Stanford. We had an awkward decision here, since normally we touch the door of a building to "prove" we've been there. But this building is someone's home. In the end, we touched the historical plaque on the sidewalk, then decided to run across the front lawn and touch a wall of the outdoor balcony. (Note: the front lawn really had some bit divots. It was really torn up. Ira called it "very shabby." What happened there?) We were a bit worried about awkwardly meeting someone from the Hennessy family and trying to explain what we were doing on their front lawn.
OK, I need to rant a bit about the alphabetical ordering of the "Hoover" buildings. There are five listed on the map, and the order is totally jumbled up. The map lists them like this:
1. Hoover Memorial Building, Hebert
2. Hoover House, Lou Henry
3. Hoover Bldg., Lou Henry
4. Hoover Pavilion
5. Hoover Tower
So many things are wrong. Why in what alphabet does "house" come before "building"? Why the need to use an abbreviation for "building"? And, that building is actually called the "Lou Henry Memorial Building", so why does Hebert deserve the word "memorial" and Lou Henry does not? Heck, the buildings are almost identical, and share a courtyard. And, of course, we must question why some buildings on the map are alphabetized by the first name, whereas here the first name is just tacked on, after a comma.
Anyways, we first ran to the Lou Henry Hoover House, which is the private home of Stanford president John Hennessy. He's a nice guy; I've taught his kids, and Ira knows him from working at Stanford. We had an awkward decision here, since normally we touch the door of a building to "prove" we've been there. But this building is someone's home. In the end, we touched the historical plaque on the sidewalk, then decided to run across the front lawn and touch a wall of the outdoor balcony. (Note: the front lawn really had some bit divots. It was really torn up. Ira called it "very shabby." What happened there?) We were a bit worried about awkwardly meeting someone from the Hennessy family and trying to explain what we were doing on their front lawn.
Next was the Lou Henry Hoover Building, which is part of the Hoover Institution. We had to run around a bit to find the sign, but otherwise not much of note here.
Then, we had a long run down Palm Drive to the Hoover Pavilion. We had a bit of a discussion why this is even on the map. It is a cool old building, but it is really closer to the mall than the university. If you're going to put this on the map, why not Macy's or Nordstrom? It is a nice building, though, and Ira's doctor is in this building, or so he claims.
Back to campus to touch Hoover Tower. As we were running back, Ira forgot about this stop and was running toward our next stop, so we had to backtrack a bit. See, I do bring some value to this project. If you're reading this blog, you probably know a lot about Hoover Tower. If not, you can look it up, since it is probably the most famous building on the campus.
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Our last stop was the Housing Maintenance Center and Annex, which is over by Escondido Village. Ira took us on a wacky shortcut, and we ran through a courtyard we'd never seen before. There was this weird sandbox with a three-sided concrete mound. (Tough to describe, but you'd have to see it to believe it.) The actual buildings are the places where the maintenance department is, so there are lots of tools and vehicles. We never actually found a sign for the annex, because it was surrounded by a fence.
Distance: 5.0 miles (bringing us to a total of 86.2)
We're going to try to run tomorrow, depending on how our legs are doing.
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