Another little surprise courtyard with fountains. This one has not only the main one you see in center, but behind it the wall fountain was running, too. To the right you see a grape arbor. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a shot of it, but opposite the arbor at the end of what looked, for all we could figure, like a jousting field, was what seemed to be a semi-circular stage with a working fireplace in the back.

We found koi! These didn't seem to be as easy to pet as the ones at French Quarter, but you can be sure I tried. These three sure seem close, don't they??

Here's a better shot of the area they were swimming in. If we had a better camera I might've gotten the coolest shot. The pearliest koi was swimming away from me when he suddenly stopped, spun around to face me, stuck his head out of the water, made fish lips at me once, and then turned back around and continued his way like nothing had changed. And NO one else saw it, either.

A surreal little sculpture of two pteranodons, either mating or fighting. Yes, that's another fountain it's in. And the whole thing just goes round and round on its little spindle all day, too.

There were flowers EVERYWHERE.

Here's some lovely Spanish styled architecture in what Martin presumed to be the married student housing.

And here's a close up of the insignia above the door. My guess is that when the place was still running, these were the Gryffindor dorms....Yeah, I'm a geek.

Flowers in front of another one of the potpourri architecture buildings.

Back to the big house near the center of campus. That's Martin peering in, because I didn't have the presence of mind to get a shot of the place without him in front of it.

And this is what it looks like inside. Chandelier, spiral staircase, marble floors and a shot clear through to the patio in the back.

I took this shot specifically to showcase the iron work, on both the balcony and the vents, the painting on the upper areas and the chimney.

Remember how you could see right through the entryway into the patio in back? This is the patio in back!

And if you turned around you'd see the rest of the patio had lovely columns alongside the entire length, as well as another fountain.

This was just interesting. A "bushman" beating his sword into a plowshare (this WAS a Christian college...) Martin and I came to the conclusion that it makes more sense to beat your sword into a scythe. That way you can pretend to be peaceful and agricultural but if anyone tries to take over you still have a dandy little weapon.

And to the south of the bushman and west of the last house, yet another little hidey hole. This one had two fountains and a little gazebo. This fountain here looked like a baptismal fount, in my opinion.

And ANOTHER fountain. I love these things, this place is a big happy haven for me. Here's a big long one with a stream to one of the opposite end of the courtyard. This shot faces one of the prettier buildings which is sadly (IMHO) flanked by two of the modern 60's buildings. I left them in this shot because they're interesting on their own (when they don't clash with the more classical buildings) and because they add to the symmetry.

This is what the other end of the northwest courtyard looks like. I really hope you're liking all these shots, I thought the place was stunning. You really need to see it in person.

And one shot taken by Martin across the courtyard fountains we just saw...

And now, the sales pitch. ^_^ Go see this place. It's already been sold, and to two different groups. Soon there will probably be some huge wall between everything and a lot of it is in danger of being razed. In the interest of not being too cynical, here are some links with information.

This link will take you to the information about how the north areas are being turned into a Christian High School and a church.

Since this page was originally put up, I've been contacted by Rand Zacharias, upcoming co-author of "Graceland is Closed on Tuesdays," which features the campus in some important scenes. He went to the college and was able to give us more information on what some of the buildings were for. If you're interested in this, click here and you can see what he said about the campus, it's buildings and history, artifacts and the uses of the buildings.

On the brighter side, if you liked this, there are more pictures (NOT taken by me and Martin) at the geocaching gallery for this cache. Even more cool, here's a site with panoramic 360 degree shots of the campus for you to play with.

UPDATE!!: Oh joy, now they're putting in condos. That's really preserving the old place, huh? For even more recent information, here's an article with a picture at the bottom of just how many damn condos are going up. I haven't seen a lot of news since that article, except that things are progressing for work to begin.

ALUMNI!!: It seems even though this page was originally for my friends mainly to view that a lot of Ambassador College Alumni hve stumbled across this page. I don't always get around to responding like I should (sorry, I'm doing college myself now...) so I've started up a small forum for people to talk in. I don't know how many people will use it, but it seems y'all need somewhere to talk!

As usual, comments either on my livejournal or e-mail me directly if you're not big on the whole blog thing.