Things: I Recommend Them. Or Not.

This past weekend Mister Graham and I went up to Salt Lake for belated Valentine's Day/6 month anniversary/4 years of knowing each other/employment/new apartment celebrations. We did a number of fun things, like checking out the hotel pool and eating ever so much food at Red Lobster. We also did some fun things that popped up in our path unexpectedly and now I'm going to tell you about them.

While making our way to the mall on foot we ran into a banner for a Jamie Wyeth exhibit at the Salt Lake art center. I crowed with delight and we went straight in. The exhibit is mostly comprised of a series of paintings based on the seven deadly sins--with seagulls. I am quite sure I have never seen such sinister sea gulls. It was unexpected but it made sense (rather than seagulls for the sake of being unexpected) and it totally worked. As time goes on, I realize more and more that I like representational art. Even though there are abstract artists that I respect, I still just can't really love their work. But I suppose that's a topic for another post. Anyway, if you're up in the area, I highly recommend you check it out. It's free and it's small so it doesn't take very long. I liked it so much I got the exhibit guide, and you can read a little more about the exhibit here. I may have spent the rest of the weekend working on my seagull face (mostly inspired by the Proud seagull with the lobster).

Secondly, on our way into the museum we notice a big yellow food truck out front selling Chinese food. Since we had Red Lobster plans we didn't stop, but thought we might get lunch there the next day. Lo and behold, when we were buying the exhibit guide, we found that the museum was giving out vouchers for a free meal from the Chow Truck. We had to wait a while and it was so cold, but the food was great! It came with "root vegetable chips" that were surprisingly delicious. I only could identify one of the roots (sweet potato) but I have been since pondering how to get some more.

And finally, two short recommendations. One, if you are traveling, bring the case for your contact lenses. Otherwise you might have to do this:
And if you know you're going to go out to eat and possibly have leftovers, it would be ideal if your hotel room has a mini fridge. Otherwise your husband will be running to the ice machine in the wee hours of the morning to restock your "fridge."*
Okay, so you can't really see the ice in this picture, mostly because this was just before we filled the bag up again before heading back to Provo. But it's THERE. And during the night it was all situated in the bathroom sink. Also, it worked and our leftover seafooderies were preserved.

*He didn't get up to do this, but being up for the bathroom, he saw what needed to be done. What a man. An ice-fetching man.