My son, Darren, and I enjoyed a two day trip to Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah, this week. He and brothers, Jeffrey, Max Allen, and nephew, Michael, watched the Lakers versus Jazz basketball game on Wednesday night, February 10. Since Melissa, my daughter, and Diana (daughter-in-law) and my two Utah grand daughters were doing other activities; I enjoyed shopping at the Good Earth Health Store for several hours (and briefly at Walmart). It would be awesome to have a health store as excellent as this in Twin Falls. Their selection of organic produce is exceptional!

We stayed over night with Shelley and Jeff and enjoyed lunch with them and Matt Thurston at Jason's Deli on Thursday afternoon, near Brigham Young University. I loved the salad bar. The others enjoyed excellent sandwiches, with sides of steamed veggies or soup bowls. I'd definitely recommend this casual, but very classy cafeteria-style restaurant.

Afterward, Darren got his teeth cleaned at the Utah College of Dental Hygiene in Orem, where Shelley teaches classes. I spent the afternoon browsing in the Harris Fine Art Center and Harold B. Lee Library on the campus of B.Y.U. It was a "dream come true" to have time to enjoy the art, exhibits, and explore the exciting addition to the library. Since I graduated in August 1970, the campus and students at B.Y.U. have changed considerably. . . It's a "whole new world," as Disney quipped. No students had computers, let alone laptops, or cell phones back then. We looked more late 60s stle, too, compared to today's casual dress. It was quite an interesting afternoon for me, in many ways.

One exhibit at the Harris Fine Art Center featured photos and paintings of the bombing of Hiroshima at the conclusion of World War II in 1945. A two year old girl, Sadako Sasaki, contracted lukemia ten years later from the radiation as a child. She believed that folding a thousand paper cranes (origami style) would heal her. When she realized that she was dying, Sadako journalized, "This is our cry. This is our prayer. For peace in this world," which was later engraved on a Children's Peace Monument in the Hiroshima Peace Park. She also inspired two girls from Minnesota to organize a group to fold 120,313 colored paper cranes (displayed at this exhibit), in honor of the Japanese Americans that were held in internment camps from 1942 to 1945; like the Topaz Internment Camp near Delta, Utah. (See www.120313cranes.org and www.TopazMuseum.org) The rest of the exhibit displayed some of the art from the Japanese people at the Topaz Camp during their miserable years there. They were not allowed to take any cameras with them (and only belongings that they could carry), but this art depicts more emotion of the period than most photographs could. . . The exhibit also included a video with more details about this tragic epoch.

The other major exhibit at the fine art center, "Magical Mystery Tour: The Beatles in Pictures," featured huge colorful photograph murals on shiney silver backgrounds, depicting a creative reenactment of phrases from Beatles' songs from the 1960s and 70s. For example, "Here comes the sun" and "How could I dance with another, when I saw her standing there?" Even though I lived through this era, I had to think hard to remember some of the songs. There were a few that I didn't even recall; but the visuals were delightful and the photographer and creator, Cate William's blog is catherinewilliamsphotography.blogspot.com for anyone that may enjoy visiting it.

For years I've observed the huge angular dome anex to the library, but had never got to explore inside. That area is a gorgeous spacious entrance to the new library facilities and connects to the previous multi-floor facility. There are gorgeous double wide marble stair cases leading to the two new floors below ground. This dome brings natural light into both levels and the three other smaller sky lights brighten other areas with natural light. There is a lovely 211 seat auditorium on the second lower level, other display areas, including the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, with its current exhibits of "170 Years of Photography" and "Capt. Dan Jones, Missionary to Wales." Other delightful rooms nearby include Juvenile Special Collections in the Farnsworth Juvenile Literature Library, among others. It was interesting to me to note that a majority of the students studying were in the new first lower level library for periodicals, where the majority had laptops, some had MP3 player cords in their ears, but cell phones were not in use (until outside the formal library areas). The end of this huge room is a wall of windows (with two emergency doors on the sides) and a landscaped upward slope reaching near the administration building. The Harold B. Library is gigantic and phenomenal; a "must visit" at B.Y.U.