BYU

 Next on our Utah agenda was a tour of BYU. Seth and Rebekah are now in high school, so we wanted to give them a taste of what our college experience was like. We started with the basics- walking through the Wilkinson Center and the athletic buildings. Then we split up for lunch. We sent Aaron and Jonny out to get take out from our favorite Provo restaurant, India Palace. Then we put my memory of south campus geography to the test by trying to meet up with them at a place I remembered had picnic tables on those trails by the duck pond. We meandered quite a bit, but none of the kids seemed to mind- Catherine had her Seek app freshly downloaded and was identifying all the plants and animals along the trail. The kids seemed more interested in playing in the grass than touring campus- the call of academia was a little beyond them. We eventually managed to meet back up and ate our food at some benches. This was a little challenging due to the saucy nature of the indian food. And then the sprinklers turned on. I had a split second decision to save the food or Isaac and the strollers from being saturated. I chose the food. Sorry little buddy. 

The big event was a tour of the Structures Lab where I had classes and worked for a while. I have a friend named Kendrick Shepherd that was on the concrete canoe team with me back in my BYU days 10 years ago. Now he's a professor at BYU! I reached out to him and asked if he could get us into the lab so that I could show the kids my old stomping grounds and see the old canoe hung up on the wall. He over delivered and set us up with a tour from Rodney Mayo, the lab manager. 

Rodney was awesome. He explained what all the machinery does and let us see the fog room, the concrete mixers, the sulfur crock pot- all the things that were staples of my time in concrete canoe. 

He showed us some mangled steel from an underway project. Version 2.0 of the experiment was set up. They added one bolt, and the steel grid was suddenly able to withstand the earthquake forces that wrecked version 1.0. 

Then we descended to the basement fluids lab where he tossed a Ken doll in the flume and showed how the design of the weir determines if Ken gets caught in the undertow or pushed out to safety. 

Rodney did a great job of making Civil Engineering sound like the coolest field ever. I had an absolute blast remembering all the coolest parts of my major (somehow all the math and free body diagrams were left out of the tour) and catching up with Kendrick. 

Aaron took Elliot up to see his old lab rooms as well. This one is the clean room where he had a class. 

Here Elliot poses oh so naturally by the door to the configurable computing lab where Aaron was a research assistant. There is a fancy new Engineering building next door that connects to the old Clyde building. It was cool getting the nostalgia of the old and the excitement of the new right next to each other. It is cool seeing BYU grow. 

Other stops included the sculpture garden by the art museum and the exhibits in the Eyring Science Center. 

Last stop: Bean Museum and the Creamery for Ice Cream! The bird right behind Elliot's head was an "Elliot's Pheasant" and the one on the top left was a "Blood Pheasant." Meant to be? I think so.