Ah, the fossils...

Today my husband and I went to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point (near Lehi, Utah). It was awesome! I enjoyed it so much I'm a little concerned for my health! It completely reaffirmed my career path choice. I am a geology major and will possibly be headed for a doctorate in paleontology eventually. I wasn't aware of the amazing variety of fossils they have at this museum!!! They have almost completely intact crinoids (ancient "sea lilies," they are echinoderms, like starfish and sea urchin) with the stem and lily all together! Blastoids, cephalopods, brachiopods, raptors, an ultrasaur, tyrannosaurus rex, a mososaur (also known as chalk monsters), giant sea turtles, giant sloths, ah! I can't stand it! I think I was actually hyperventilating a little bit while we went through the exhibits. There was a little boy that went through some of the exhibits with us and I told him about trilobites (they have an enormous collection, by the by) and crinoids and such and he said that even though it was my first time going to the museum that I was like a tour guide cause I knew so much about everything. *blushing* They even had a bunch of brachiopods that went through replacement when they were fossilized and now they're made of pyrite (fool's gold). I loved playing with those in my historical geology lab. The best part was going to the gift shop! I picked myself up a trilobite, an ammonoid, an orthoceros, and a break-it-open-yourself geode (and I did and it was blue inside, my favorite). Chemistry and calculus and physics and all that stuff will definitely be worth it to be a geologist. Hopefully soon I'll have a collection of fossils I've dug up myself.
I suppose I've alerted you all to the fact that I am a hopeless nerd, geek, whatever. And I love it! I might end up as one of those adults with their own dinosaur toys, but, hey, it's fun!
I strongly recommend the museum at Thanksgiving Point to anyone that loves fossils of any kind (CAUSE THEY HAVE THEM ALL - well, except a dunkleosteus skull or a giant alligator skull which can be found at the Earth Science Museum at BYU near the stadium). *sigh* I'm so happy! (Oh! And they had annelid worms, too!!!)
Well, I think I'll go cuddle down with my trilobite and watch a movie with my honey. Cheers!