Carleton 2015

We drove through here on a very hot, muggy July afternoon in 2010 (Northfield: July 2010) on our way back from the east coast. It was too late in the day to get a formal tour, but we wandered around, scurrying between air conditioned buildings. Given our family's general reaction to hot weather - and D's experience with the heat in Hanover just a week or two earlier - you'd think that would have ruled this place out. But less than a year later, he arrived for "accepted students" weekend. We delivered him and his stuff the next September (2011) and now, all of a sudden, he's graduating.

Graduation got under way under a light drizzle and behind a wall of umbrellas, but by the time the graduates were going up for their handshakes, the rain had stopped and the view of the stage had been restored. It's a small school, so all of the students could be called by name and given their diplomas, and all within a relatively bearable length of time.

I'm not sure how much we'll see of Northfield from here out, but it looks like trips back to the midwest may continue, albeit to Wisconsin, not Minnesota.