Saturday, September 6, 2014

We headed back to Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, UT to visit the Museum of Ancient Life and the Museum of Natural Curiosity.  You could probably guess one was all about dinosaurs and one was designed to entertain kids or maybe they were both for kids.  I enjoyed them both.

At the entrance to the Museum of Ancient Life, we found this little placard.  It grabbed our attention and made our visit a little more fun. "It's not easy to see 'em" was a huge understatement.  We were more than halfway through before we overheard someone who had found one.

 This big boy was about 3 feet from nose to tip of his tail.  He was unidentified (I'm guessing green or common iguana) and the only live specimen (other than a few little fish) in the museum.

Eryops (Permian - 250 million years ago) Swamp dwellers

David thinks they must be the ancestors of the R.O.U.S. (any Princess Bride fans?)

Supersaurus ("super lizard") Late Jurassic/Early Cretaceous (about 144 million years ago)

Tyrannosaurus Rex ("tyrant lizard king") Late Cretaceous (about 65 million years ago)

Can you find the first gnome?  He is only about 3 inches tall.

We didn't see him either until someone squealed and pointed.

Amber (fossilized resin) is easy to fake, but real amber gives off a burning pine odor when ignited.  It also floats in salt water (hard plastic does not). 

 Gnome number two was watching over the amber display.

Xiphactinus audax - Late Cretaceous (about 70 million years ago)

15 to 20 feet long - what a beauty!

Gnome number three was hiding in the shadows.

David spotted this one.

Mammuthus (AKA - "Woolly mammoths") Late Pleistocene (about 12,500 years ago - became extinct just a few thousand years ago)

About to be crushed under the mastodon's knee - rough way to go.

Aepyornis Maximus - "Elephant Bird" - Holocene (about 700 years ago)  - extinct just over 300 years ago.

Ten feet tall - weighed over 1000 pounds.  Their eggs were as large as three feet in circumference - Yikes!

Starting back at the beginning to see if we could spot a few more gnomes, we noticed his big guy had moved.  Looks like he is smiling.

David found gnome number 4 in the archaeology room perched high.

The kid behind the front desk wouldn't tell us where the gnomes could be found, but he gave us a T-Rex hint, so we headed back for another look...

...Hello!  Gnome number 5 and the last one we found.  We'll have to come back someday to find the other eight!

We spent more time than we had planned searching for gnomes finally giving up when hunger got the best of us.  After a quick lunch, we headed to our second museum for the day - The Museum of Natural Curiosity.  In retrospect, going on a Saturday might not have been the best idea.  The place was crawling with kids - go figure!

This was the best kid-oriented museum we have ever visited.  Hands-on exhibits and people watching made for a very entertaining afternoon.

She was thrilled when I took her picture.  She stayed there for almost 5 minutes.

The museum continued outside and was part of a large water park and playground complex.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

We drove to Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, UT for the first time (the third attempt was a charm).  We tried to see it when we stayed in Salt Lake City in May but it did not work out then.  There are several attractions at Thanksgiving Point, but we started with the Gardens.  Just walking from the car to the door was a pleasure, with so many varieties of flowers it was amazing.  They have a total of 55 acres of manicured gardens with some of the most unique and colorful flowers we have ever seen.

Just outside of the Visitor Center is the Grand Allee, a spectacular view down the hill, through the gardens and ending at the Vista Mound with its columns reminiscent of Greek ruins.

Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah is an ASTC member making the gardens free for us.  The other four attractions at Thanksgiving Point are also free with a membership (that will be another day)

The woman at the front desk said we should be able to see all of the gardens in about two hours.  I believe we were there for about fours hours and we did not get to see everything.  It was, of course, impossible to photograph every flower variety but that did not stop us from trying!  

The Creek Garden had some unusual blooms that could not be captured very well.  They were best enjoyed as part of a wider scene.

The Rose Garden was huge, but it was not really prime time for roses, so I captured a panorama of the garden structure and moved on.

Wrapping around a portion of the rose garden was Monet Lake.  From the Koi View Pier, you could get the idea that it might be home to about a million fish.

"Feed me!!!"

We were told there would be some hungry fish in the pond, but you would think these Koi were starving.  The water appeared to boil as people leaned over the rail to toss in feed pellets.

The grasshopper below certainly had a wide variety of colorful plants to choose from for his next meal.  This guy, I dubbed him Jumpin' Jack Grasshopper, was at least 2 and 1/2 inches long.

Utah has a long history of grasshopper invasions that go beyond the norm.

Below is the "Italian Garden" which reminded me of a bunch of cascading bathtubs running downhill.  In Italy, these gardens would be viewed from your Palazzo on the other side of the hill.  They could be viewed from the bottom or from the midway point but there was no meandering through them.  

This was my favorite posy in the whole garden.  Measuring only 1 inch across with a lovely flourish that looks like music flowing from a trumpet.  (Hard as I tried, I could not identify this charmer.)

In the "Secret Garden" below, it was fun to picture it as your backyard until you noticed just how many people were working in the area to maintain the walks and plants.

Constructed of fiberglass and concrete, the man-made falls in the Mountain Garden are the largest in the western hemisphere.  There are 9 separate falls spanning 360 feet.  The highest is 65 feet and together they have a water flow totaling 60,000 gallons/minute (maintained by 6, 125 hp pumps).  This panorama was taken from the amphitheater platform.  Later we walked throughout the "Mountain Garden" along the top of the falls.  Hunger was getting the best of us at that time, so we called it a day and headed off for a late lunch and home to Sam.

Thanksgiving Point Gardens were some of the nicest we have seen and we look forward to a return visit someday.

Monday, September 1, 2014

We have had the coach now for just over 6 years, so it wasn't a surprise that one of the day/night shades needed some work. Joani sent for a complete repair kit that included new string, bushings, springs and a DVD  with a step-by-step video showing how to repair the blinds. 

The string had not completely broken, but it was not going to last much longer. I could not picture how the blinds magically worked.  The DVD helped a little, but videos found online at www.fixmyblinds.com were much more helpful giving us an idea of what to expect.

It's not surprising to see this happen in a 15-year-old coach.

American Coach owners beware:  It should be noted that although they illustrated three different methods of routing the strings, none of them matched the arrangement used on our blinds (used in year-2000 American Dream). Additionally, our blinds did not use bushings and our springs were different.  

To make sure we could reassemble the shade, I marked each of the four lines and tried to carefully note where each line passed through each section and rail.  I just hoped the drawing would be clear enough when it was time for reassembly.

If David hadn't thought to do this, we would have been in a pickle.

The most difficult thing was to slide the sections apart while still following exactly where the strings went.  Rubber bands helped to keep the different sections of the blinds neat and were a must as we tried to thread the new string during reassembly.

We handled the plastic endcaps with great care.  Any plastic in our coach was well beyond its life expectancy (10-12 years).

The video said the job would take a couple of hours and I scoffed.  As it turned out, they were wrong.  It took us closer to four hours from the time we removed the unit from the wall until we were finished!

Since there are three more blinds in the coach that, at least, look the same, I decided to neaten up the stringing diagram for future use, but if we never have to perform this repair again it won't hurt my feelings.

Note:  The cord used in the RV day/night shades is not the same as shade cord that you can find at JoAnn's Fabrics.  It has an amazingly strong core which makes it quite stiff (it does not stretch).  Next time (heaven forbid, there is a next time) I will order just the cord and new cord tensioners (if needed) instead of a kit.  Our 4 strand - 62" x 30" shade required 16 yards of 1.6mm (alabaster) cording/string.  The cord was stiff enough that a restringing tool was not necessary.