Utah Natural History Museum

Sorry it has been so long since I've updated. I'm going to try to get you caught up most of the way today. A few weeks ago, we took a trip down to Salt Lake. Erik was finally feeling a bit better from his cold and had a touch of spring fever, so we needed to get out and do something fun.

The museum is on the campus of the University down there, so parking was very interesting to say the least. We spent 20 minutes circling around trying to find a spot to park that would give us long enough to visit the museum. The museum itself only has 5 parking spots and most of the other spots in that area have a 30 minute limit. We finally got one of the museum spots, only to find out they weren't enforcing parking that day (despite the signs everywhere that say they enforce 24/7).

Anyways, it was a great trip. We drove down and stopped at Jason's deli for lunch. When I lived in Oklahoma Jason's was one of my favorite restaurants, so it is a nice treat when we get it. We only discovered the Salt Lake Jasons in January, so this is only the 2nd time I've had it in more than 10 years :) Anyways, went to Jason's and my sandwich had some olive pits in it. I couldn't believe it, I almost broke a tooth! Thankfully I didn't though, and we all had a very yummy lunch topped with their free ice cream, and I got to bring home yummy left overs too!

Then we stopped off at the chocolate factory, where you can watch them make their chocolates. Unfortunately, it turns out that they do not make chocolate on the weekend LOL... Still we all had fun looking around.

Next it was off to the museum! I was really surprised by the size and quality of the museum. I was a little nervous when I found out it was on a college campus, but they use every inch of space and use it well. We were there for a few hours.

When you first get inside, they have this really cool dinosaur. Nick absolutely loved it.

The kids can "feed" it (money) and it talks to them. Nick thought that was great, then he had some fun feeding it his arm!

Nick had been talking a lot about totem poles lately, an interest that seemed to show up from nowhere, although I'm sure it must have come up in a book or TV show. You can imagine his delight when we saw this:

It was the first totem pole he's seen in person, and he was really excited.

And then of course... what good is a natural history museum without a spot to dig for dinosaur "bones" like an archaeologist?


After the museum Nick asked us if we could move, apparently there aren't enough museums in Idaho Falls. I'm so glad he enjoys museums, we love them and it's so nice to be able to share that time together.