History Detectives

Dad was worried that Sara and I wouldn't be intrested in coming along with him to St. George, so he conjured up an adventure to entice us. Back when dad was just a young sapling he spent many evenings working as a clerk at Fenton's Pharmacy in downtown St. George. Whenever he tells us stories of his days working, there the scenery that shows up in my head is from that part at the beginning of Its a Wonderful Life where George Bailey is working in that loony old dude's drug store/ice cream parlour. Hot Dog! I don't remember all the ins and outs of the story, but apparently old man Fenton had a bunch of super old pharmaceutical bottles and devices, including an old timey scale, that were quite the tourist attractions when he had them displayed at the store. Somewhere along the way these items were donated to Dixie College. Our mission was to hunt down these relics and make sure they weren't just shoved into a box somewhere.

At first we thought this would be a tough task, and we were completely prepared to use brass poles to pound our way through a giant "X" on the floor and walk through rat-ridden sewers. Instead we just walked into the Science building and looked at the first display shelf we came across, and there they all were. That's some super sleuthing, says I. The old bottles and beakers were pretty cool, but I was a big fan of the super old Cosmopolitan magazines that were found under several layers of carpet in the house of one of my great aunts. They're probably better off behind glass at Dixie College, instead of eventually finding their way to the Antiques Roadshow.

Our relic hunt was a lot of fun, but I also enjoyed our little jaunt over to Sara's alma mater, the Dixie College Art Department. She was like a rock star over there, man, every teacher knew her and they were all really excited to see where life had left her. We even spent some time talking to Del Parson, one of the most famous of all Mormon artists. He did the famous picture of Jesus to the right, and a bunch of other really popular ones (look 'im up, and see how cool this guy's stuff is). Del was pretty much Sara's mentor while she was at Dixie, and he was very glad to see her. After we spoke to him, another one of her ex-professors, Glen Blakely, pulled her aside and had her take her pick from among loads of super cool pottery he had recently baked. There were so many awesome ceramics there, her teacher had just gone on some sort of kiln spree and I was glad he let us take a few of them home with us. I had no clue what a great little artist I had married. If I were to ever go back to the Math department at BYU they wouldn't even know who I was...I spent most of my time there trying to avoid the professors.

The Truth of the True Thunder

A lot of the prints at the dino print place were sticky-outy instead of sticky-inny like I imagined they would be. I probably read why they formed that way like 5 times, but I don't remember now. Something about mud and a bunch of time. About half of the footprints were labeled "Eubrontes" so I got to picturing some really cool footprint-lovin' little green critters named Eubrontes that were all over St. George back in the good ol' pre-extinction days. Perhaps they were generally older little beasts and they preferred the warm climate to live out their golden years. In what ended up being one of the strangest coincidances of 2010 (so far) the U-Haul truck we were given to move into our new house had a giant green Eubrontes on it. Crazy! And I'd never even heard of the little guys before that St. George visit.

A little bit of wikipedia-ing tonight has crushed all my visions of Eubrontes grandeur. I discovered that "Eubrontes" is the term for any fossilized footprints from the late Triassic or early Jurassic period, and NOT the critter that made them. Curses, and I had already put Eubrontes on my top five favorite dinosaurs list, not too far from the best dinosaur ever, the mighty Tyrannosaurus. The next picture is Zoe and I being scary in front of a Tyrannosaurus eubrontes shipped in from Mexico. I'd like to see a real Tyrannosaurus skeleton someday. The Tyrannoskull below is just a replica. Like a big moron I've walked right next to two full skeletons in the last few years but didn't spend the few dollars and minutes to go in and check them out. There's one in the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, and another in The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Man, Tyrannosaurs are so flippin' sweet. I'd say one of the best moments of my life was when my parents let me watch Jurassic Park, my first PG-13 movie, and my first DVD...I would have loved to be eatten by one of those guys, could there be a better story to tell in heaven when people ask what did ya' in, as they're bound to do?

A Return to the Desert

The blood flowing through my veins is a little more red than most peoples' because it contains high quantities of sand from under the hot sun of Utah's Dixie. Way back in the Brigham Young days, my ancestors were sent down to St. George to settle the joint, and there we stayed for generations. Sometimes you just gotta leave Scotland and move to the desert, I guess. I often wonder if I've disappointed my dead relatives by leaving the wilderness they risked their lives to tame. No, I think not, they probably would have moved too if they had the internet and could Google "water" and find out that there's gallons of it goin' for free on the other side of the Sierra Nevadas.

Ends up that I'm not the first animal to creep his way through St. George. Millions of years ago some cool dinosaurs (all dinosaurs are cool) were passing through the city and they left some super awesome footprints in the mud. Not too long ago those footprints were found by a family friend of my dad's, and eventually the site evolved into a big exhibition facility. Dad invited us along for a ride to St. George the week before we moved to Seattle, so we stopped in at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site while we were in the neighborhood. Good grief is it hot there, no wonder the dinosaurs didn't stick around.

Happy Birthday Sara!

According to the Pastry Decoration Act of 1983 all cakes shaped like whales shall have lit candles representing water spewing from the confectionery whale's water hole thingy. This was the month that Sara's hair immaculately shot out bangs. She told me I wasn't allowed to make fun of her short-lived hairstyle on my blog, so I won't...or did I? Happy Birthday my Sara!

A Birthday Execution

I thought it best to celebrate Sara's 28th birthday by way of a group papier mache penguin execution. The arctic victim was stuffed full of candy and prizes, put into a box, and wrapped up so he couldn't get away. Sara wasn't very excited about beating the poor little guy, but after a minimal amount of coaxing, her mind was changed, and we strung him up on the basketball standard to await his demise. I believe it was Bryson that delivered the fatal blow, and I was very disappointed to see that none of my kin jumped to the floor to pick apart the carcass. The whole point of having a pinata in the first place was to hear the clunking noise of heads colliding while the candy is collected. Fortunately for the penguin, it was a super cold day outside so that he could enjoy his last moments in his native climate. Our little Zoe was very concerned about the penguin's recovery after his injury, she actually asked if he'd be okay. Sadly, he didn't pull through, but we were all grateful for his martyrdom, as it provided us an abundance of Kit Kat bars and parachute guys. Happy Birthday Sara!