Burke Museum

cattitude and I went to the Burke Museum of Natural History today. It's a nice little museum, with some pretty fossils, a good exhibit on the geology of the area and how it developed over time (which includes some of those fossils), and some nice anthropological and cultural material, old and recent. I was surprised and pleased by some Clovis points that were found in Washington state in the 1980s, and a little disappointed by the display of a baleen whale fossil: the description makes it sound like the type specimen for its species, but doesn't actually give the species name.

I hadn't expected to be able to see almost everything in a couple of hours (with more energy I'd have taken a more thorough look at the temporary exhibit on Pacific cultures); we'll likely go back at some point, when there's a special exhibit that seems worth it, but won't be joining the museum.

We walked back to the bus through another bit of the UW campus; lots of things are in bloom right now, including what we think was a kind of violet, along with lots of cherries, daffodils, etc. We also saw a patch of shamrock, which I wasn't expecting.

Lunch before the museum was at an Indian restaurant called Shalimar on University Way, selected semi-randomly as we walked past because the posted menu looked interesting and I appreciated that they have a menu posted outside. My goat biryani was excellent roast goat in a bed of caramelized onions and rice that was about as spicy as I can handle (which, admittedly, isn't very, but when she asked about spice levels I said "I need it mild"). Cattitude's fish kurma struck me as overly sweet, and the chai was only okay, but he quite liked the pickle, and I may go back if I'm in the U District and in the mood for goat.