Day3 My last full day in California was dedicated to hiking and exploring some of California's redwood forests. A one hour drive south brings me to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. This is California's oldest State Park, and home to the largest continuous stand of ancient coast redwoods south of San Francisco. This beautiful park is home to thousands of redwoods and is not very crowded. It is mainly for hiking with only a few campgrounds available.

The redwoods are awesome and can only really be appreciated in person, a picture can not capture the real size height you get by standing next to one. I'm always amazed that such a hardy species of tree is so limited as to where it can survive. Redwoods can live to be 2,000 years old or more potentially. They are not harmed by any insect or disease, can withstand forest fires, lighting strikes and wind yet they only exist in this small area of the world. You cannot transplant a redwood or grow one in a nursery. They can only survive in this small geographical area and unique environment of coastal California.

It is easy to see why loggers quickly flocked here to cut these giant trees but it was interesting to learn how efforts to save the trees quickly took hold. Attempts to photograph the trees and send word back east were often met with disbelief. It was thought people were exaggerating or falsifying or doctoring pictures to describe these trees. Like I said you have to

see them in person. Luckily conservation efforts where able to preserve some areas before being completely logged. These efforts are a big part of our nations best known conservation history, including names like John Muir, and Teddy Roosevelt and the beginning of the National Park System.

The hiking was great and before I knew it I had to return to my hotel and pack up to return to Wisconsin the following morning.

Day 2 Taking a one hour drive down beautiful Highway 1 as it runs down the Pacific coast I arrive at the University of California-Santa Cruz, located in the foothills of Santa Cruz. this beautiful campus is almost the polar opposite from UCSF.

The campus of University of Santa Cruz is enormous in size at over 2,500 acres, and takes a crew of 46 grounds personnel to maintain. The land includes large prairie areas, heavily forested areas, and mountainous terrain. The setting and log cabin type architecture makes it feel like a mountain resort. Part of the reason I chose to visit UCSC was that it made Forbes list of "most Beautiful College Campuses" and was top 10 of greenest colleges in the nation according to Sierra Magazine. I met with Mr. Rodger Edberg, the Senior Superintendent of Grounds Services. He was kind enough to give me a one hour driving tour of the entire grounds, and showed me many of the challenges they face.

Maybe the greatest challenge currently facing UCSC is not water consumption, but regulations. Emission standards made it necessary to throw away old equipment they worked perfectly fine. Because they had diesel engines made before a certain date, they had to eliminate close to 100,000 dollars worth of equipment.

Strict recycling rules mean garbage has to be separated into cardboard, paper, plastics, metals, and compost material. The amount of equipment, personnel, and time spent doing this is on the scale of what a mid-size city around Milwaukee would require. Fifteen full time employees do nothing but collect and sort garbage everyday.

The campus irrigation system is large and very high tech. The campus is divided into zones. Each zone has irrigation clocks that determine when a set of sprinklers turn on and how long it runs. what is unique about this system is the irrigation clocks are all tied into individual weather stations. These weather stations measure temperature, relative humidity, wind, evaporation, transpiration, and precipitaion rates. These factors all determine when the irrigation system runs. It is all done by computers and insures you use the least amount of water needed to maintain a healthy plant material.

This large campus is run like a small city, and most of the driving forces to change on the campus involve green technologies. From recycling to emissions and water usage, these are all items that will soon affect all schools.

day1

Day 1 I arrive at San Francisco State University. This is an urban campus located in the heavily populated area of Daly City just outside of downtown San Francisco. The campus is 134 acres which interestingly is almost the exact same size as our USM campus. The similarities pretty much end there however.SFSU has over 14,000 students with numerous housing complexes and campus buildings.

I choose to visit this campus because it is a urban campus that deals with environmental problems like radiant heat, noise and air pollution water shortages and actual limit of green space. It was named "Best in Urban Campus Landscape" by the California school summit, so I was excited to see what they do.

I was able to meet Mr Philip Evans the director of Campus grounds. I was given a2 hour tour by his assistant Darian. His enthusiasm for the things they are doing was infectious. They obviously have a passion for what they are doing.

Much of what they showed me on campus had to do with water. Every inch of lawn and shrub beds is irrigated, so they are very concerned with water use. The campus has begun projects where they move away from turf and incorporate plantings that are more drought resistant or native to the area. One of the neatest things i saw was the large water tanks that are filled from rainwater that runs off the roof. The water is then pumped into the irrigation system. The pumps for this set-up are powered by solar power, so they are able to irrigate a very large area at no cost using rainwater runoff and solar power.

I saw the honeybees they keep by the grounds building not only for propagation by as a educational tool. I think this would be a neat idea for USM. Local bee keepers associations may keep one on our property, and that could be a neat educational tool for our school.

I included some pictures of some of the many neat ideas they incorporated on their grounds. Ideas for covering electrical boxes, bioswales, rain gardens and butterfly gardens.

It was a really neat campus to see and get a grounds tour off and I could write another whole page but I will move on.

Day 1 Part Two

In the afternoon I travelled to Golden Gate Park. This park in the heart of San Francisco is home to many attractions. I was able to visit the California Academy of Sciences, Stybring Arboretum and the Conservancy of flowers. The Academy of Sciences was well worth the visit,between the aquarium, the rain forest display and living roof. It showed many of the new technologies being used to limit energy use and preserve resources.

The Arboretum was interesting just to see the vast number of species of plants that can grow in that area. Must be nice not to have a winter. The conservancy was ok but it has nothing on our own Mitchell Park Domes.

Sunday June 12th 2011. The first Monday after the school year ends and I find myself in San Francisco Ca. The trip out went great except for a short flight delay due to what else fog in San Fran. After getting situated I am ready and anxious to start my 3 day whirlwind tour of some cutting edge college campuses, museums and state parks that are using new green technologies.