It's a Friday morning in late April as I crest the hill on Route 195 near Husky Village and Horsebarn Hill.

Spring has arrived, propelled by a westerly breeze redolent of blossoming viburnum, and the UConn campus, attired in forsythia and daffodils, spreads out beneath a cloudless blue sky.

I have come to experience first hand what travel planners might call "Destination UConn," a weekend of activities that you may not have previously considered since your undergraduate days.

So much has changed in Storrs in recent years that some alumni may be challenged as they try to find their way around the campus.

However despite a decade of growth, many landmarks seem immutable: the elegant spire of Storrs Congregational Church; the verdant quadrangle of lawn between North Eagleville Road and Whitney House; and Mirror Lake, spangled with a jitterbug of midday sunlight.

Still, the changes are many and there is no shortage of activities to select from during a weekend visit.

The Lodewick Visitors Center

The best place to begin finding your way around campus or to learn what is going on is the Lodewick Visitors Center, which opened six years ago at the corner of North Hillside and North Eagleville roads.

The students staffing the information desk are assisting two families when I arrive.

They are helpful ambassadors and offer a wealth of information on the University and its programs as well as brochures and other printed materials.

I help myself to a self-guiding tour map and head toward south campus and the Nathan Hale Inn and Conference Center, the on-campus hotel that opened five years ago.

On this weekend, the Nathan Hale plays host to families of high school students participating in an invention competition, freshman prospects and their parents and the University of Notre Dame baseball team.

The 100-room colonial style building has all the amenities travelers would expect in a quality hotel — a business center, five conference rooms, a Jacuzzi, a swimming pool and fitness center and a restaurant with a sumptuous menu.

After checking into a spacious, comfortable room long enough to review my campus itinerary; I head out to begin my personal tour of UConn.

A Taste of History

The J. Robert Donnelly Husky Heritage Sports Museum.

The J. Robert Donnelly Husky Heritage Sports Museum is housed in the lower level of the Alumni Center.

The singing voice of Sarah McLachlan draws visitors to a bank of television monitors, where a video is playing as part of a continuous loop of highlights celebrating UConn's championships in men's and women's basketball.

As you enter the Connecticut Basketball Rotunda, nearly life-size cut-outs of Rebecca Lobo '95 (CLAS) and Ray Allen (1993-96) stand as sentries before the glass cases that hold the Huskies' seven NCAA national championship trophies and memorabilia from March Madness.

But there is much more.

The museum is a time capsule, bursting with Huskymania memorabilia from more than 125 years of intercollegiate competition in all its forms, including national championships in men's soccer and field hockey.

There is also the football team's 2004 Motor City Bowl trophy, as well as displays highlighting UConn All-American student-athletes in baseball, women's soccer, archery, tennis, track & field and softball and achievements that have led to 66 Big East championships in a variety of sports.

For lunch I head over to the newly expanded Student Union to sample Chuck and Augie's, the year-old eatery named for UConn's original benefactors, Charles and Augustus Storrs.

Most of the 120 seats are already occupied when I arrive, but I find a table and order a grilled panini.

Packed with London broil, portabella mushrooms and gorgonzola, it's a sandwich without subtlety and thoroughly satisfying.

After lunch it is a good time to take a leisurely stroll across the heart of the campus along Fairfield Way, past the Homer Babbidge Library, to the Wilbur Cross Building, a sort of Faneuil Hall for UConn where students can sort out questions about financial aid, housing assignments and other student services.

Long before its current reincarnation, this elegant old domed edifice was UConn's first library.

It is a fitting place for an exhibit-both informative and entertaining — that chronicles milestones in UConn's 125-year history, including the dawn of UConn's on-campus radio station, the birth of oozeball, Moe Morhardt's distinction as the university's only two-sport All-American, and Prof. N. L. Whetton's landmark 1930s research on the emerging phenomenon of suburbanization, among others.

Ashley Werth '08 (BUS) leads a group of parents and prospective students on a tour of the UConn campus in Storrs.

Back on Fairfield Way, spring seems to have erupted almost spontaneously this afternoon.

Fueled with an outdoor grill, unicyclists, jugglers and a band called The Can Kickers, it is a quintessential celebration of the season.

I enjoy the vibe for a few minutes before heading off to meet Clint Morse, plant growth facilities manager, for a tour of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Conservatory.

It may be a crisp afternoon outside, but it's Devonian within.

One can practically imagine Earth's floral diversity evolving on the spot. In fact, these greenhouses are home to more than 3,000 plant species.

Orchids? Got ' em. Rubber trees? Cocoa plants? Yup.

Sweet Honey in the Rock in concert at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts.

At the Nathan Hale, my companion and I enjoy a first-rate dinner at the Blue Oak Café, the hotel's restaurant, before heading over to the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre, where the Connecticut Repertory Theatre is presenting Shakespeare's As You Like It .

One of the CRT's six annual productions, it is a pleasant evening of Elizabethan wit in an intimate theater setting.

Something Old, Something New

On Saturday morning Horsebarn Hill Arena is hosting the 2006 Connecticut State 4-H Horse Judging Contest.

Horsebarn Hill remains a timeless composition of stone walls, white fences, red barns and rolling green pastures.

When we arrive, four young women are waiting to show a quartet of Morgan yearlings, about two-thirds grown and as jumpy as nerve ends.

Visitors to the barns are welcome, so we spend a leisurely hour communing with cows and horses and their young.

It is spring, and fecundity is everywhere apparent.

There is no better way to follow a tour of the barns than to hit the famed UConn Dairy Bar, which ice cream aficionados would agree is sufficient reason itself for a trip to campus.

You can watch ice cream being made, sample the latest creamy recipes, or just order an old favorite — a vanilla malted milk shake that is one of the world's great culinary experiences.

Thus fortified, we head over to the Lodewick Visitors Center where a group of people, mostly prospective students and parents, are waiting for the noon tour. Our guides — Brian McDermott '08 (ED) and Ashley Werth '08 (BUS )- are typical of the students who lead tours.

Congenial and knowledgeable, they use audiovisuals to provide a crash course on UConn's rise in popularity and rankings and its many points of distinction, before leading us on foot across the campus.

Along the way we stop to investigate a high tech classroom in the new Chemistry Building and a residence hall room.

After the tour it is off to the William Benton Museum of Art for the regularly scheduled Director's Tour of the museum, led by Sal Scalora.

We will view "Stolen Childhoods," in the Human Rights Gallery, which opened as part of the 2005 expansion of the Benton.

Robin Romano's film and photographs documenting the worldwide exploitation of children as laborers is both graphically compelling and deeply

disturbing, precisely the kind of edgy experience Scalora envisioned for the new gallery from the outset.

"We must not allow ourselves to accept inhuman events and conditions as a kind of predestined reality," he says.

"I believe that.the Human Rights Gallery can be a catalyst for positive change."

We return to the Nathan Hale to relax before dinner at the Blue Oak and our evening at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts with a concert by the inimitable a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Sweet Honey has carried the torch for justice since 1973, lifting spirits worldwide.

Tonight, as the singers enrapture the audience with their tight harmony, is no exception.

Baseball and Puppets

Nick Tucci '06 (ED) pitches during a series against Notre Dame at J.O. Christian Field.

After breakfast on Sunday morning, we decide to take in a few innings of a Huskies baseball game against Notre Dame.

Over the years, UConn has had 115 players drafted by major league teams or signed to free agent contracts en route to five NCAA College World

Series appearances. Led by Big East coach of the year Jim Penders '94 (CLAS), '98 M.A., this year's team broke the 2005 squad's record for wins, finishing with a 39-18-1 record.

The quality of play is what you might find at the highest level of minor league baseball, as evidenced by the intense battle between the Huskies and the Irish.

And best of all, you are close to the action in the stands at J. O. Christian Field.

No visit to Storrs is complete without taking a bag home from the UConn Co- op, now located across from Gampel Pavilion.

Shirts, shorts, jackets and caps emblazoned with UCONN logos are among the most popular items available.

With two stories of books, computers, apparel and classroom supplies for students, the Co-op occupies some 53,000 square feet, nearly double the size of its former location.

The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry

There is one last stop as we head down Route 44 Sunday afternoon.

A large crowd has turned out at UConn's Depot Campus to launch the tenth anniversary season of The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, the state's official puppetry museum. With a collection of more than 2,000 puppets - including creations of such luminary puppeteers as Bil Baird, Margo and Rufus Rose and Frank Ballard - the museum is both a celebration of an ancient art form and a facility where students in one of the world's few university puppetry programs learn the ever-evolving technologies of puppetry.

And like much of UConn, it sits squarely at the crossroads where the past and the future converge.

For all that enshrines tradition here, the campus and the pageant of events and activities change constantly, making each visit a new experience.