Nebraska @ MindSay 
college
I am back from the panhandle of Nebraska. It was quite the trip! Thank goodness it was short. I had my fill of travel earlier this year and late last year, and I was glad that this trip not only went smoothly, it ended early too. I got some cool pictures of the Nebraska area around Scottsbluff, and some even better ones of Denver and the Rocky Mountains (thanks, Ryan!)
While I was in 'Husker territory, I had my first ever Runza! It wasn't half bad, though a steady diet of them would keep me in the bathroom or allow me to make enough noise to found my own brass section for some needy orchestra. Whoo!
There was another place, best described as an 'upscale hole-in-the-wall' called the Emporium that I would highly recommend if you ever find yourself in the panhandle of Nebraska on the way to either Denver or Cheyenne, WY. This food rocked! And it's well-priced too! I had what they called 'Amber Chicken', a prosciutto-wrapped solidly-peppered chicken breast with a rice-and-mushroom side and steamed vegetables. We also had this smoked salmon appetizer with whipped wasabi, mmmm, it was good. And they serve Goose Island beer! From the outside, it looks like some older couple's house that's been heavily landscaped, but inside, it's a converted house, old wood floors and walls, nice ambiance, really a classy place in the middle of nowhere. This was dinner on Thursday night.
Friday afternoon, I had a pulled pork sandwich at another little place that reminded me of my grandparents' place in Wisconsin for some reason. Or maybe it was the effect that Scottsbluff was having on my memories.
In Denver, to catch my flight, I ate at the Macaroni Grill just outside of Aurora. Had some bowtie pasta, spicy red sauce, parmesan-encrusted chicken, mushrooms, roasted garlic (which I'm still paying for) and artichokes. Yum! But filling. OOH man, was it filling. Eating a bunch of those garlic pieces, I was afraid I was going to sweat garlic for a day or so. We'll see! But the brass section got some extra instruments and performed all night long. Thank goodness it was a private performance.
Good Goddess Above! My brain is fried! I bailed on exersising again this evening and my moms immeditally got after me for that. Your going to loose your momentem...blah blah blah.........your starting to loose that water weight...blah blah blah. I kept my kewl and politly informed her that my school work at this time takes priority over any walking or eliptical machine. Then my mother who hasn't been in any form of school (I don't count continuing credits to keep her RN License) for 50 some years, said it shouldn't be that hard to do your work during the day. Mind you my mother didn't go to college college. She went to a 4 year Catholic Nursing school and only took core courses for nursing!
It took me literally all day minus 20 minutes in the morning to take the kids to school and three and half hours this evening (we had a school function to go to for the kids) to complete all but my final essay for this week. I read the main chapter for this week and after looking at next weeks assignment, I don't have to read the other two chapters she went over in our notes this week till NEXT WEEK. I took all my notes, I read everyone's postings, I posted my main posting today and responded over 4 times to other people's main posting (we only have to do 2 for the maxium to recieve a grade), I hunted down two completely different News Editorials to do my assignment. One on the US's No Child Left Behind Law and one from Jeruslum on Ramadan. I wrote, typed, and then posted both articles and my take of appeals and submitted them to the prof. I read 4 different classmates essays and picked one to make suggestions on. I posted my suggestions and printed off next week's assignments and new topic for the next paper. I also wrote down about two dozen ideas to "improve" my final draft of the Self Discriptive Essay, the Prof likes my paper but says I am not descriptive enough. I am going to work in the fact I am actually a very private person til I obtain a comfort level with others:D
I finally got all this done at 10 pm tonight! During the day and all my homework, I managed to get two loads of laundry done, discuss and be interviewed for my girl Teri for one of her papers and gave her some presidential historic information on Jimmy Carter for another paper and consented in talking to my brother for 45 minutes. In the afternoon, the kids and I did our Dollar General run (that is my new wally world:P), killd some time at the Buffalo pasture reading the Historical marker and took a few pictures of the buffalo, then we went up to the school for Family Science night! The kids really enjoyed themselves and now we have to show Randy how to implode soda cans, pull plant DNA, and explode two 2 liters of soda using menthos and life savers! The program was run by one of the NE Medical Center Genetisist out of Lincoln and I think a Highschool Biology teacher out of Omaha! I was a big kid and managed to snag a lil vile of strawberry dna that the kids (all school kids present) helped to pull tonight! I gave it to a lil girl who didn't get any though. Oh and we have to show Randy how to ease a no shell hard boiled egg into a beaker flask with out breaking it and then show him how to get it out!
I don't think I could handle two or three classes this semester for my first semester back. Not with everything I do around this house for everyone including people who don't live in my house! I am doing good if I do say so myself. And tomorrow my "date" with my girl Bree is actually going off with out a hitch! My moms is taking the kids to school for me so I can meet Bree in the morning. We will do her small errands and then Casino HERE WE COME! Randy set me a 100 buck limit and Arjan set Bree a 50 buck limit not counting lunch or any stops we make. Those killjoys know that Bree and I can sit at the casino all day if allowed! As long as we are out of the casino by 2 pm to pick up our respected kids all is good! I won't even complain about having to drive to the city tomorrow night for TKD and then kill two hours before my Leadership class AFTER our actual TKD class!
If you live in Nebraska, only pay the amount for what is posted as you're driving up. Don't let the attendant give you any shit- don't pay at the pump or you're screwed. Pay cash and bitch them out, then complain to the Attorney General that he didn't do enough the first time around.
- McCain Republican millionaire fundraiser at Strategic Air Command museum
- Nebraska Democrats at our fundraiser
- Mr. Shade eats a hotdog and discusses campaign issues
- Secret service men checking us out
- Me greeting McCain and his entourage
A good time was had by all. Even McCain smiled and waved. Perhaps he wasn't wearing his bifocals. Mr. Shade took a video of the McCain entourage, but apparently he can't take a video and hold an Obama sign at the same time. It turned out kind of scary.
We decided to go shopping before the zoo, my sister and I! What a great day we had planned. And it was going so well! Out of the six major Thrift World Stores in the Metro area of Omaha, we hit two. The two nicest ones with the Brand Name clothes! One on the Northwest side of Omaha and one on the Southeast side of Omaha near the Zoo.
What a great way to end our mini camping trip that just turned in to being a mini stay at my sister's house due to the varying weather that kept popping up! Instead of staying at the really nice free camp grounds we stayed at my sister's house for a few days, I wasn't going to chance being caught near a big man made lake that had extermly high levels near the banks of the camp ground!
Anyway, after a GREAT haul of a summer woredrobe for both kids from two different thrift shops and then treating the kids to lunch, we headed to Henery Dooley (sp?) Zoo for a nice afternoon. It started out great! We hit the Jungle, the Sea Lions, the Garden of Senses, the Cat House, part of the Avaiary, the Gorrila House, the Cat Complex, the feeding time for the smaller tropical birds, the Desert Dome, and the Giaraff House. With smaller enclousers along the way of course! Of course pictures are on here! Enjoy!
While we were just ouside of the New Butterfly House and the Aquareme deciding which one we were going to go in first before we started heading to the town were my van was sitting so the kids and I could head home and my sister and her kids could head home, we heard the tornado sirins go off! Now I know why so many ppl get killed in public places during storms! The tornado sirns go off and the majority of the Zoo visitors head for the Goddess Dayum parking lots! I kid you not! Well being country girls, my sister and I herd the kids to the aquarememe (sp?) house under the canapoy and bust out our cell phones. Each of us respectively calling our hubby's, asking them why the hell neither one of them called to tell us there was a storm system heading straight at Omaha! We informed both of them that we were heading for the storm shelters in the Fish house and we would call once the storm passed. Then we hearded the kids towards one of the Zoo Workers holding a door open to the basement of the complex leading to the exective offices and we were one of the first groups down.
There were a few other ppl down there already but what we found the most funny out of this was that everyone single person down there including us, were NOT from Omaha persay but from the surrounding communities and areas! We are NOT fools! While the main secruity guy was telling us and the few zoo workers what the plan was, he was getting reports from the weather radio and the few of us that stopped and made calls. Then he asked us to sit tight, while he and his other crew went outside to go round up the rest of the Zoo visitors and get them inside various zoo complexes till the storm passed.
We had a couple of upset kids of course, my daughter being one of them, and a lot of upset ppl, including ball players that stuck around after the College World Series before they went home. Those of us from the midwest were laughing and joking and calming the kids down. We kept telling everyone that we are in one of the safest buildings and don't worry about the animals they know what to do and the zoo workers were making sure they were safe also. Once all the zoo workers got in the main secruity guy came back in to our basement and said it was pitch black out and winds up to 90-100 miles per hour and they would not know if a tornado hit till after it was clear out. The lights did go out and thankfull the generator kicked on right away.
After we got the okay to clear out and leave the zoo, we got some pictures of the damage done in side the zoo. Down trees and one of the heavy glass safety entrance doors to the Wild Kingdom Palliviallion was completely blown off and laid gently down in front of the Pavillion! I missed that picture! There was hail everywhere! We had to make our way out of the Eastern Side of Omaha back towards the I-10 exit so we could head to Freemont NE which is an hour Northeast of Omaha, where my van was sitting! Damage everywhere! While driving the news said, the Art Festival got hit hard downtown Omaha, there was a boat taken off of a dock in the Missiouri and was dropped on the roof of a house, trees blocking roads, and down electrical poles all over Omaha downtown/metro area! We stopped on the outskirts of town to feed the kids and the Taco Johns we hit had running TVS. The area heading to Fremont NE was hit hard also and a semi rig was entangled in electrical wires! Cars of the road, rigs off the road, and major damage. This system worked its way into IA and massive damage and two killed on the IA side.
We got detoured outside of a town between Omaha and Fremont due to massive damage and accidents. Where I got a phone call from Randy when he got home. My dog Spud died during the day yesterday! Randy was upset and of course the kids and I were very upset also, but we also knew the dog was going to end up dying on us. Spud was the dog with the unknown seizures. At first Randy thought he somehow choked while he was outside on the chain but when he went up to examine Spud, there was plenty of slack in the chain and the collar would have slipped right off of his neck (we made sure that it could slip off if he was caught up when running or on the chain if something would have happened). The way Spud was laying and his facial features, you could tell he had a massive siezure. So trying to find our way on back country roads and county paved hiways we didn't know to get back into Fremont, we had upset kids and nobody was out directing the traffic. My sister and I again being country girls said fuck it and got on a country road and started heading towards the sun because Northwest was where we wanted to head. We picked up a truck in front of us from our home area just a different county and he had the same idea. We got rerouted via the roads with no help from anyone due to big trees, silos, fencing, and other debries in the mushy gravel roads! A normal 1 hour drive from Omaha to Fremont took 2 hours!
Once we got to a lil town Southeast of Fremont which would have been the quickest route we got denied by a State Trooper directing traffic. Nobody was allowed into town where a small lake was surrounded wiht houses and such due to the damage! They weren't letting anyone through not even family members of the town or land owners with no houses. Ambulances and Fire trucks were all over the town and two of the rural fire trucks were making their way towards the other road leading to Fremont. We just turned around and followed the fire trucks into Fremont. Finally! Fremont NE had no major damage. Some trees down and some windows broken but no major damage. Then we pull up into the truck stop where we left my van. I got a lovely suprise! My rear windsheild was blown out or a rock got kicked up in the storm! I have no rear windshield now! Nothing was stolen. But everything was glass covered clear up to the front seat and everything was water logged! Thank GODS I had what ever paperwork I did have in there in sacks and covered up! My Leadership Manual alone would have cost me 100 some dollars to replace if it got water logged or damaged somehow!
So I called Randy yet again and told him we FINALLY made it into Fremont but I would be still a lot later because we had to clean up the glass and find places for the kdis to sit with out getting cut up! Thankfull we were able to pull a couple of the pillows from underneith my tent that dind't have glass on it and give those to the kids to sit on. My sister handed over one of her towels so I could sit on it while driving. And then we rearrange the back so none of my Thrift shop finds, my tents, sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, or other camping gear would go flying out for my hour drive home! I ended up pulling over twice on the way home to rearrange my back but FINALLY my normal two hour drive ended up being a 4 hour and 45 minute drive and we made it home at 8:45pm. where we promptly unloaded the van and shop vaccued it out so I could get some plastic on the windshield due to more storms coming this weekend.
After we got that done, we gave Spud my Fat Man Dog a burial worthy of a King. See we couldn't bury him. The ground is too wet and his smell would draw the local wild dog pack and the local coyote pack. Not to mention all the other wild critters int he area. So we took my lovely burn pile Randy made up for me this weekend and gave Spud a Funeral Pry. We didn't want any other anmals digging him up and eating on him. Randy loaded him on the bonfire and I threw some sage, cedar chips, and sweet grass all over Spud and we said a lil blessing for him and said our goodbyes.
Now today, I get to call his old family and inform them that he is gone. I am doing laundry from the back of my van and going to take the kids down to my girl's house because they are still stressed from last night. A lil fun down at Aunties house and coming home about the time Daddy gets home from work will do them good.
Now I am off to throw another sleeping bag into the wash! Pictures to come after this post!
Showing 1 - 5. [ Next ]