The Magical Eucalyptus Groves of UCSD

This "net" is by Robert Irwin, and is one of the art installations of the "Stuart Collection" at UCSD.

Sol and I would often walk through these trees, sloshing through the detritus of the fallen leaves and flowers-- an exercise in olfactory pleasure as the aromas of the eucalyptus oils wafted up as we walked. Once I saw a huge flock of Monarch butterflies resting in the grove on their way to Mexico. Once the university took down dozens of the trees to make way for a new building and the students placed crosses on each stump.
I wonder if Sol remembers the campus and the many groves and arroyos that we often walked through.I wonder if she remembers the cool, cleansing smell of those magical trees.

In another part of the grove were two talking and singing trees made by Terry Allen. Sort of a radio station. Allen would send tapes to be broadcast over speakers in the trees. The texture of their trunks was a metal version of the scales of the Eucalyptus trees themselves.

By the library, the Stuart Collection had a snake mosaic twining around a desert garden by Alexis Smith. They had just put it in around the time Sol and her family left, so the garden hadn't really grown that much. But Sol liked the mosaic and the benches where one could sit and get a view of the campus and the library.