February Museum Trip to Salt Lake City

 In late February, the kids had a Thursday off of school. A few weeks before that, I remembered that last year I had bought the 365-Salt Lake Connect Pass, which is a pass to go to a whole bunch of museums and other cool spots for a year. We used it last Easter, and then got busy and hadn't been back to Salt Lake City. Not wanting it to go to waste, I decided we'd do an early spring break and go see a bunch of museums.

First off we went to doctor's visits on Thursday, charting the kids' growth and getting a booster measles vaccine for me. This was also when Coronavirus was barely in the U.S., and China was looking like they were getting control of it. I had a caving trip to China planned in late April and asked the doctor's advice about going. He said I should go, just take general precautions of washing hands and staying out of open-air food markets that had live wildlife. We weren't even that concerned with how much it might spread here. My, how times have changed in just four weeks!

Then it was off to lunch at Tucano's, a Brazilian restaurant. We had never been, but it rated high on Trip Advisor, and we were duly impressed. Desert Girl tried hard-boiled quail eggs, and we had so much delicious meat that we were very happy. I was also happy about the kids' price, which was less than half the price of an adult. And Desert Boy, still 12, qualified as a kid!

Next up was the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah. We've been here before, so we knew we would enjoy it. Here's Desert Girl dressing up as a dinosaur next to some big bones.

The kids love putting on faces, so they were happy to pose with the megalodon.

That evening we went to a musical, Floyd Collins, put on by the University of Utah. Floyd Collins was a cave explorer near Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. He wanted to have his own show cave to make him rich. While he was exploring in 1925, a rock fell and trapped him in the cave in a very narrow location. Up on the surface, a media circus erupted, with hundreds of people arriving. The story made headlines in newspapers across the country. Unfortunately, Floyd died in the cave. We went over the storyline before we watched it, as I didn't want the kids to be surprised by the ending.

 The set was quite creative, and they climbed all over the ladders and catwalks to simulate moving through the cave.We enjoyed the musical and the kids said they would like to see more musicals.

The next day we started off with a trip to the thrift store. We love thrift stores and reusing things and finding "treasures." Desert Girl was thrilled to find a jean jacket vest.

Then it was time to go to Costco. We don't go often, so we always fill the big cart when we go. Maybe I had a thought about stocking up in the back of my mind, as we bought some things we don't always get, like Lysol wipes and Kleenex and chocolate syrup and a cheese sampler pack.

Next we went to Tracy Aviary. The kids got some energy out traversing the mini-climbing wall with bird-inspired handholds.

We hadn't been to Tracy Aviary for over four years, when my parents came out to visit. We were thinking it was going to be a really quick trip to look at some birds, but we had so much fun and just took our time.

This bird liked looking at us upside down.

The kids insisted on having their photos taken at the cutouts.

What made Tracy Aviary really exceptional for us was attending the live demonstration. They brought out many birds, including this African owl.

Several times birds flew right over our heads. It was super fun, and also educational. This turned out to be one of the big highlights of our trip.

Our next museum was the Natural History Museum of Utah. They redid this museum several years ago, and it is amazing. Up on the top floor they have an interactive part where you can make a space station. Both kids were eager to do it.

Then they had to test their space stations. Desert Girl was very happy that her space station passed all the tests, including spinning and shaking.

Then she left a note on the interactive panel: "How would you feel if life was discovered on another planet? Why?"

As we continued, we found a familiar scene that Desert Boy jumped into. (Hint: it's not in Utah, but just across the border.)

Eventually we got down to the dinosaurs. Watch out, again!

We took our time and wandered through at a relaxed pace. It wasn't super busy on a Friday in February.

Next we went over to This is the Place Heritage Park, a place we had never been to. They are constructing a new visitor center, so we went to the temporary one, where we showed our passes and found out that most everything is closed for the winter. We weren't too excited by anything that was still open. So we headed to the playground.

Nearby Desert Girl found a horse, so she was happy.

A cool surprise were some moose over in the orchard. But overall, we wouldn't go back here in the winter, it's just boring. It looks like it could be interesting in the summer, with a replica frontier town. 

We had one more destination for the day, the Clark Planetarium. We were really excited to go. But when we arrived, it was closed, maybe because there was a Utah Jazz game that night. We were super disappointed. We walked around the Gateway shopping plaza a bit, and found some outside entertainment.

The kids tried out some parkour moves. 

Then we headed south, as we had an early morning destination for Saturday! To be continued...