March visitors

The past few weeks, Heather and I have had the pleasure of having several visitors: first Keith (a friend from Mudd), then Tim and Sara, then Heather's parents Mark and Marilyn. I just wanted to share some photos!

On an Intown Atlanta bike tour: Krog Street tunnel (known for its graffiti art)


Tim, Sara, and Heather after a game of Agricola on the floor of our Clemson apartment

Our attempt at a home-cooked Ethiopian meal, complete with teff-only (gluten-free) injira bread. The toppings: spicy lentil dish, Ethiopian chicken, and collard greens/cheese… DELICIOUS

A little while ago, I made an impulse purchase of a bunch of vanilla beans online. So while Tim and Sara worked on some sushi rolls, Heather and I started the process of making vanilla extract! Here, we've cut into the bean to reveal the fine-grained "beans"—i.e., the good stuff—inside.

Beans from different countries have slightly varying flavors, and I had bought a "sample pack," so we made a lineup of 8 different flavors to try. In fact, making vanilla extract is extremely easy—just steep the beans in vodka for several weeks or months, shaking them from time to time to help the extraction process.

Making sushi rolls!

We really benefited from having some great chefs (Tim & Sara) around: here's a mouth-watering dinner of homemade egg-drop soup and sushi rolls.

Tim, Sara, Mark, and Marilyn were all here at once for one day (St Patrick's Day). We took the larger group out for a delightful visit to the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Needless to say, I went wild with my camera.

The Atlanta Botanical Garden is "home to the largest collection of species of orchids on permanent display in the U.S."








Some of the orchids looked startlingly like some sort of alien spacecraft…




More alien spacecraft

These guys made us laugh out loud, because they kinda look like little faces wearing sunglasses.



This room is full of unique species of plants from Madagascar. Curiously, not a single plant in this room is actually a cactus! Cacti are technically from North America, and these species evolved totally independently. Pretty cool how similar conditions can create similar, but totally distinct, species.

Very on-topic: a vanilla plant! Did you know that vanilla is a type of orchid?



The Garden has been undergoing extensive renovation and expansion. One of the hallmark additions is a "Canopy Walk," an elevated walkway that will spiral through trees and into the garden. You can see it in the background of this photo. The grand opening of these additions is at the beginning of May; it will be great to visit then!



In the Children's Garden, playing on some musical posts

The group, minus Marilyn

After Tim and Sara bade goodbye, we spent a couple more days in Atlanta, then headed back up to Clemson.



Orange and purple = Clemson Tiger colors. It's impossible to get away from them (and the omnipresent orange tiger paw prints) in the Clemson area.

Huge tree!

On Saturday, we headed up to Greenville to visit with some extended family, the Praktishes (Sheryl Praktish is Marilyn's cousin's daughter). The group of us went on a quite nice ~5 mi hike at local Paris Mountain.


Afterward, we headed to downtown Greenville to check out Reedy River Falls park, in a formerly declining area of town that has been turned into a charming, beautiful, popular park that fills up with locals on a peaceful, pleasant Sunday evening.

A recently-constructed, elegant bridge unifies the scene and provides a wonderful view of the falls and the park all around.




The whole week, we and our guests were enjoying the early signs of spring: in particular, flourishing flowering trees of beautiful whites and vibrant pinks.
Here's a full-bloom magnolia tree next to the Praktish's house.

With the Praktishes after a delicious home-cooked Southern dinner (featuring buttery shrimp and grits)

Back in Clemson on Sunday, Mark and Marilyn helped us start our garden! We planted some seeds that Tim and Sara graciously gave us (along with much useful advice) and some from the store in containers—about half herbs and half vegetables. We can't wait to cultivate, and eventually taste the fruits of, our first garden!

With the Schalliol parents for our last dinner all together


What a wonderful way to spend spring break!