Memorial Weekend...Extended.

This was going to be a post about Memorial Weekend, but other exciting things happened, so it's slightly extended. 

First off, Thursday! It was my friend's birthday, so we hit open mic night. I was there only to support :) Look at the fancy array of instruments! It was a lot of fun.

 Friday and Saturday took me up camping at Bear Lake. The weather was quite nice during the day, but I nearly froze at night! I woke up with my teeth chattering. But the next day, we played croquet on the beach! It was fantastic. The white wickets were a little hard to see against the sand sometimes, but it was definitely the best croquet game I've ever played. There were exciting water traps that some of the group fell victim to, as well as various muddy and scummish areas. I even ended up winning, though it really was more luck than anything. I was in last place for pretty much the whole game. It was at this point that I got a bit of a wicked sunburn. I now have a lovely flip-flop sunburn line, and I've been sustaining jokes about red stockings on the back of my calves for the past few days.

 Sunday morning, I headed off with my parents and brother to the exciting land of Vernal. Below are pictures of a fabulous bridge near Flaming Gorge Dam, a faraway shot of the gorge (can't believe I didn't get a better shot!), and Navajo Cliff, near Flaming Gorge.

 After driving into Vernal, we took a detour to go by the Vernal temple. It's quite beautiful, and I hope to go inside someday (just like in the Primary song, haha). I haven't been in the majority of the temples in Utah.

 Monday it was all things Dinosaurland! We went up to the quarry, which was apparently originally funded by Andrew Carnegie (cool, right?). For those who haven't been, they have a wall of exposed fossils, housed in a visitors' center. It's really cool because you can see (and touch!) actual dinosaur fossils. There are a ton in this one location. It's called a logjam, which is a collection of fossils in a riverbed due to some kind of blockage. Super awesome. The first picture is a closeup of one of two skulls preserved in the wall. It's a little blurry, but between the blurry closeup and the clear faraway shot (the skull's at the top of the picture on the right, complete with neck), you can get a pretty good idea of how it looks. Below is a cast of an Allosaurus skull, me touching an actual dinosaur fossil in the wall, a lovely family picture, and what I believe to be a modern art interpretation of what a stegosaurus looked like (what the heck is with those colors?).

 The next two pictures are from the museum in Vernal. They have a garden outside with various dinosaur models. The picture on the right is...a dinosaur skeleton. Also, my brother on the left. The last picture is Starvation Reservoir on the way home.

Other exciting points: my brother, Bret, and I had an enlightening moment about ravens. We were discussing how a group of ravens is called a murder, and we thought that was rather silly, as we'd never heard of a group of ravens attacking anyone. Lo and behold, the very next day, Bret read on his Altoids tin that Altoids were once used for, among other things, treating raven wounds! And then it hit us: RAVENOUS!!!! Mind blown. I decided that more research was needed, so I consulted the source of all wisdom, Google and found that....it's actually a murder of crows. Quite a letdown. Ravens do come in a constable, unkindness, or conspiracy, so it wasn't a total loss.

Tuesday was rough after so much vacationing, but I made it through and got home to find a letter from my favorite missionary, Sister Nicole Fulgham. She's so far away (well, only California), but she can still make me laugh and says exactly what I need to hear. She'll be back in November and I'm so excited!

So there it is. Memorial weekend. It was awesome.

Thanks for reading.