Awesome Trip to Rhode Island part dva (thats 2)

I know you've all been waiting with baited breath for us to finish our chronicle, so here it goes:

The Monday after Harvard Dana, my mom, Cheryl and I went to Yale.


They had an exhibit in their museum on systematics and phylogony called the Tree of Life. Its basically what Dana does at work. It has to do with figuring out how things are related based on their genetic coding instead of what they look like. It was pretty cool. My mom and Dana had a lot of fun perusing it. There was an elephant shrew (which is apperently related closely neither to an elephant nor to a shrew) that was very cute. The shrews kept walking around so we didn't get very good pictures of them. What we did get pictures of was the Women's Table featured here:

It was designed by Maya Lin who also designed the Vietnam War Memorial in D.C. I read an article on her here at BYU for one of my classes. I had seen the war memorial but never thought I'd see the Women's Table. It was very cool.

On Tuesday Dana went bug hunting. He was hoping we would be in Rhode Island in time to catch fire flies and I thought we would be, but they still hadn't come by the time we left. Don't feel too bad for him, he caught some really neat looking bugs...and about a million June bugs. Woohoo. I did not go bug hunting with him. The prospect of wading through waist high, tick filled grasses did not appeal to me. Shopping, however, appealed greatly to me. My mom took me out and bought me all kinds of cool new clothes. She also bought me fabric to make me two new dresses. (Thanks, Mom!)

Wednesday we went to the New Bedford Whaling Museum. When we told some of our RI friends that Dana wanted to see it, they laughed at us and told us it was boring, but we went anyway. It turned out to have expanded since I went (eight years ago). They have a Sperm Whale skeleton sitting on the floor in one room: much cooler perspective wise than something hanging from the ceiling. Here is Dana standing under the jaw of a Sperm Whale.

And here is me getting stuck in the bunks of the life sized model of the ship. My calling in life is not whaling.

Thursday we went to Cape Cod. We decided to go all the way out to Provincetown to see what we could see. They had a tall tower with a pretty good view of the end of the cape. It was all very picturesque and relaxing. The water was very cold and clear. We had fun enjoying the coarse sand and pretty rocks. Dana even caught some bugs on the beach.


On Friday Dana went bug hunting in west Rhode Island. I don't have any pictures of that; sorry, guys. Dana caught, besides bugs, a water snake and some toads. Maybe one day he'll post pictures of those. I was boring. All I did was go to the movies. I saw Prince Caspian with Cheryl.

Saturday was mom's day to work at the temple, so we went up with here to do a session. We also got a chance to do some sealings, something I hadn't done since my own. It was really sweet. The group that was there were doing family names and were really glad to see Dana, to have another man in the room. They were happy to see me too.

After that Dana and I did a whirlwind trip of Boston. We didn't have very good maps, and I was the navigator. We only had to course correct once or twice on the way there...and we only passed the same Home Depot in Boston six times. Dana was very patient with me and only laughed as we went around in circles. We got a chance to see Bunker Hill (the historical even that happened on Dana's birthday, mine is the Boston Tea Party) without scaffolding. We also stopped at Mike's Pastry shop in the North end. Then we had to hurry back to the temple to pick up my mom at the end of her shift. We passed Home Depot a few more times on our way out of town and made it back only 45 minutes late. We had lunch at Panera and treated ourself at Trader Joe's, which made everyone feel better.

On Sunday, after church, I made Cheryl her belated birthday cake. She took pictures with her camera because she had forgotten her's.


Monday Dana and I took the ferry to Nantucket. We had to leave the house early to drive out to the cape again to catch the ferry. It was a long day. We picked the best one, though. The weather the rest of the week was not nearly as beautiful as it was the day we went.

Nantucket is a yuppie stronghold and everything is really expensive. So instead of renting a bike or a scooter for the day, we just hoofed it around town. We stopped at "oldest house" (the oldest on it's original foundation, not the first built) and some pretty churches. We found a nice little candy shop with delicious toffee. Here are the whale shaped truffles we bought also.

We also stopped at the Brant Point lighthouse to see the beach. The water was really delicious compared to the hot sun. Dana went to take pictures and I played in the water.

After the ferry passed by, some waves pushed a horseshoe crab up to the beach. I'd never seen on alive before and I was afraid to pick it up, so it got away. However, when Dana came back, I told him about it, and sure enough, when the ferry passed again, the waves washed another crab up to the beach. Dana picked it up and showed me where to hold it. We both decided it was worth the price of the ferry ticket to see and hold the horseshoe crab.
This is a picture I made Dana take as we arrived back at Hyannis because I was too lazy to take my camera out.


Tuesday Dana went to Providence. While he was there a horse got away from his cop. He said that was pretty funny. This is a picture of a WWII memorial

and the other is one of Roger Williams.
Since there is no painting of Roger Williams, the artist based the statue on one he had also done of Ted Williams. He figured they were probably related.


We flew home on Thursday. I was sad to leave, but really happy to be able to have spent some time with my parents at my home. Its good to go home. I ended up with a new haricut, new clothes and some of my books and Dana was able to eat a whole bunch of seafood.

Now it's back to the borring everyday stuff again. *Sigh* I guess I just have to accept that life is not vacation.

But it's pretty good. ;-)




P.S. I apologize if my formatting makes you crazy... I'm still learning.

Trip to Rhode Island (Part one)

Dana and I just returned from visiting my folks in Rhode Island. We were there for about two and a half weeks. It was very relaxing to stay with them and not go to work (tehe!). So this post is about what we did there. If that bores you, feel free to just skim and look at the pretty pictures.

We arrived on Tuesday night and as soon as we stepped out of the airport we were hit by this wave of cool, moist, sea scented air. It was a wonderful thing. It made us very happy to smell the salty air again.

Thursday, Dana and I went with Cheryl to the Sachuest Point Park in Newport and walked around. Dana caught bugs...I read part of a book...we enjoyed looking at the pretty water and rocks.

Dana and I and my parents went together to the Harvard science museum. It was pretty much awesome. Lots of cool bones and funny things in bottles. They had a really nice display on arthropods (including crustaceans, insects and arachnids). There were some pretty amazing beetles. One had polkadots.

These are tortoise beetles

Here are the polkdot ones

and some pretty butterflies.

Besides the bugs, the museum also had some cool rocks and a really huge tortoise shell. My mom is the blury figure walking past the shell. And you can't forget the dinosaur bones.

As we went about the campus we found some pretty buildings with stained glass. Stained glass on an Ivy League campus. Go figure. But it was pretty all the same.

OK, I'm going to go ahead and post this much of our journey. Check back soon for more of the exciting adventures in Rhode Island (and Massachusetts and Connecticut).