going natural

H's birthday coincided with Monday's Columbus Day holiday and we had planned to go for a hike, seeing how it's been something like three weeks (!!!!!) since we've done one.  The weather did not so much cooperate: 50% chance of rain up in the canyons, plus we could see the ominous dark clouds just sitting there, resting on top of the mountains.  Obviously, that wasn't going to work.

Adverse weather does not affect doing city stuff, however, so after a stop in at Crown Burgers (my treat: Crown Burger combo for H; Junior Crown Burger combo for me), we headed up to the U to check out the Utah Museum of Natural History.  It's a nice little museum, small but informative, with biology, anthropology and earth sciences collections, including a pretty impressive dinosaur exhibit - largely because there are lots of fossils out here in Utah, especially east and south of here.  We timed our visit exactly wrong - to coincide with about a million junior high and elementary school kids - but spent over an hour and a half there, poring over the exhibits.  Did you know that there are over 1,200 kinds of bees native to Utah?  Me neither!

We swung by the football stadium afterwards, hoping to pick up tickets for any of the remaining home games (Colorado State, TCU and BYU).  I knew that BYU was - and had been - sold out, but we were surprised to learn that TCU was also sold out and it was SRO for Colorado State (no thank you, not at my age).  Last fall we nabbed tickets to both the games we went to the week before each game.  These early sell-outs do not bode well for obtaining any tickets next year when Utah switches to the PAC10.

Oh, what did I get H for his birthday, you ask?  A carboy and an ingredient kit for IPA ... it's time for H to start brewing beer again.  That's the gift that keeps on giving - to me, too!