Omaha Vacation

I'm home and back at work, so let's take this time to reflect on the last several days of vacation. Without mention of sodas.

Sunday
Our friend Suzzanne had ridden down from Omaha with friends Friday night and was staying with us. We got up and went to church with my parents at 8:30. After that we drove to Council Bluffs, Iowa to see the Kanesville Tabernacle. This is the place Brigham Young was sustained as president of the church. What I didn't know until reading the last Work and the Glory Book was that he wasn't sustained until after getting to the Salt Lake Valley and coming back. After Joseph Smith's death, he lead the church not as president but as president of the quorum of the twelve apostles. I knew that part, but I figured as soon as they got to Council Bluffs he was sustained. Nope. Not until going to SLC and back.

Anyway, the original tabernacle doesn't exist anymore, it was torn down not too long after its construction. It was made of cotton wood, which apparently isn't a good material for building things. It shrinks a great deal over time, and is a good attracter of fungus. The replica was built a few blocks from the original and the church, wanting to be realistic, used cotton wood. The inside support pillars, also made of the wood, are attached to a jack underneath the structure, which will lower as the walls shrink and lower, to keep the roof level. The senior missionary there said that the walls had shrunk a total of 14 inches since construction. And they have to remove mushrooms that grow on the wall and ceiling.

After all this we checked into our hotel, the elegant Magnolia Hotel, nestled between the downtown and Old Market areas. A prime location. Well, the hotel didn't have baths, it had showers. It had room for bath tubs, but they decided on showers. Okay. A bath would have been nice, considering my house doesn't have a tub. And the TV had local channels, about ten sport channels, a few news channels, and maybe four cable channels. Not impressive. But they had pay-per-view. I remember from having cable in our home the wonders of pay-per-view and being able to rent a movie for about $4. So, we looked through the movie selection until we found something we liked. We pressed the button to order, and saw that the movie was $11.99. We decided not to enjoy a movie that night.

The room had free coffee, or we could enjoy a Fiji water for only $5. There was no mini fridge or microwave, which would have been nice, and no pool, which I already knew about, but it would have been nice.

The plusses about the place was that it is a historic building in a beautiful area. The architecture was cool, and the staff was nice. I would just think that for the price, there would be more amenities.

Oh, and they had valet parking. Which they charged $12 a night for (no, you couldn't park your own car). I figured for that, they didn't need tips too, though it seemed they sort of waited for one. We did give the guy a tip while we were checking out, considering he helped load our car.

Also on Sunday night we went to Sullivan's Steakhouse. But I already blogged about that. What I forgot was the severe thunderstorm we caught ourselves in afterwards. After dinner we went to the Gene Leahy Mall, which is really a park with a sort of river going through the middle. It's actually pretty cool, though Suzzanne tells us to be careful of drug paraphanelia. We saw some storm clouds to the south, but didn't think much of it. We let Will play on the grass and watch the swans. Then Emily looks to the south and sees the clouds coming in much faster, along with lightning close by. We decided to make a hasty exit. The hotel was maybe eight blocks away from the park, and a few before making it, the wind picked up and started blowing sand in our faces. Not too fun for me, even less for Emily and her contacts. As we crossed the final street to our hotel, I was blown a foot to my left. I knew it was time to get indoors.

Monday
Most things are closed in Omaha on Monday, entertainment-wise. So we went to Lauritzen Gardens in the morning and the Henry Doorley Zoo in the afternoon. Both were cool, to us anyway, but the zoo is a bit busy on Memorial Day (I honestly didn't plan a Memorial Day vacation when I asked off, it was just the first week Emily was out of school). We ate at this Mexican place between the gardens and the zoo that was wonderful. The menu was in Spanish first, English Second. And they sold real Coca-Cola (previously blogged about) in glass bottles that used sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. Goodness.

That evening Will was understandably getting tired. In fact, at lunch he sat next to me on the booth and just fell asleep. Anyway, he was getting cranky, not getting the long naps he was used to. We went to the mall in an attempt to burn time before dinner, but Will had had enough. So we stopped at this padded play area and turned him loose. He. Loved. It. I swear he just ran around and played for over an hour. Afterwards we went to The Amazing Pizza Machine, a place kind of like Chuck E Cheese's, only ten times better. There's a pizza buffet with pizza, tacos, salad, desserts, fried chicken, and, Emily's favorite, at least four varities of slushies. After eating we let Will play around in the little kids area. There was even this little train that he could ride on. He loved it.

Tuesday
We were going to go to the children's museum just a few blocks from the hotel today for Will then an adult museum (not that kind of adult) for us in the afternoon. Emily's mother happened to call and tell us that the one in Omaha wasn't that great, but the one in Lincoln was much better. It was. It was three stories and had water play areas, a mini town with fake restaurant, hospital, grocery store, and construction area, air planes, a NASA rover, and quite a bit of other play areas.

We hadn't been there long when Will started one of his famous freakouts. We decided to leave to get lunch. After we came back and he actually got a few more hours of play before freaking out again. Not bad considering we screwed up his nap schedule.

That night we dropped him off with Judy, Suzzanne's mother, while Suzzanne, Emiliy, and I went to see Prince Caspian (great movie by the way). When we got back, Judy had put Will to bed. He had freaked out when she put him on the bed, so she put him in this camp chair that had raised sides and front. He was so cute, but I don't think we took a picture.

Wednesday
This was our last day, and we were getting tired. We hadn't spent much time in the Old Market (the sort of historic, trendy, independent (liberal) thinking area) so that's where we went after checking out of the hotel. We checked out an antique shop and a modern American Indian sort of shop then went to the used bookshop. Heaven in a dilapidated building. We walked out with ten books between the two of us. Yes, I know I'm an addict, and I don't want any help.

Next we went to Old Chicago for a last lunch with Suzzanne. When we said goodbye I think Will knew we wouldn't see her again for a while because he kept wanting to go to her, even when it meant leaving me (he's been clingly to his daddy lately) and he was upset when we parted. Very sad.

Anyway, we went to Homer's Music and walked out with a bunch of used CD's, including Queen's Greatest Hits, volumes 1-3. Woo-hoo!

After one or two more stores, I knew it was time to go, so we skipped the rest and hit the road. I wasn't even out of Iowa before I had to pull over to have Emily drive (I had driven less than an hour). But that's okay, because fifteen minutes before getting home, Emily had to stop and we traded again.


Over all, it was a great vacation, we had a lot of fun, I'm still tired, and Emily and I didn't fight once on our trip. That's got to be a miracle in itself.