Well, just Omaha, really. Omaha Nebraska. Slowing down the pace a bit, we spent three nights in Omaha. We were lazy for the first day, and only ventured out to check out the Mormon Trail Center at Historic Winter Quarters. What a mouthful.
When the Mormons originally started their trek from Illinois to their new home of Salt Lake City, they thought the first wave of settlers would reach their destination within the first year. They were wrong. Weather conditions forced them to stop for the winter, and they did that in Omaha Nebraska.
Once here, they built a small town of 500 homes. A smaller “scouting” party was sent ahead to Utah, and along the way they mapped the trail, watering holes, and good camping places. Once the weather was favorable, the Omaha settlers left for Utah,and more pioneers from Illinois took their place. Over the course of several years, more than 70,000 Mormons migrated through this area. In fact, it is considered to be the most successful pioneer migration in history. These people were hard workers, smart, and willing to sacrifice for the common good- or for God, as they probably saw it.
This is a small museum, adjacent to the cemetery where the pioneers who didn’t survive the winter are buried. Once we entered the building, we were greeted by a “sister”, a young lady who is on an LDS mission in Omaha. She was curious about our beliefs and she and I had an interesting conversation about the beliefs of the LDS church. I enjoy learning about their faith, as long as one tries to convert me! She didn’t, but she also didn’t let me tour the museum on my own. She stayed with me, discussing each exhibit. My only issue with that is that it made me feel rushed as I read the information presented. Paul took the opportunity to scoot ahead and tour at his own pace.
One of the exhibits showed the handcarts that were used by the pioneers to cart their belongings from Illinois to Utah. It was actually faster and cheaper to travel that way, since the oxen that had been used previously walked slower than people, and of course needed to be fed and watered. Paul’s great great grandfather was one of the Mormons who made this trek using a handcart. Although small, this museum had a lot of interesting information.The following day didn't start out exactly as planned. The night before we had been having issues with the hot spot and Wi-Fi on Paul’s phone, and after 3 hours of talking with AT&T and Apple, they told us to go to the nearby Apple store and get his phone replaced. Luckily we had insurance, so it didn't cost us anything. We took care of that before heading to the Henry Doorly Zoo for the day. (Edit: Paul’s new phone doesn't work correctly so we’ll have to replace it again when we get to El Paso. Meantime I activated my hot spot so we’ll see if I can post with it)
We don’t go to many zoos, and we had just been to the National Zoo in Washington DC, but one of the exhibits sounded particularly interesting to me. The Desert Dome houses habitats from 3 deserts around the world, and beneath it is Kingdoms of the Night- the world’s largest nocturnal exhibit.
Here they have switched the day/night cycle, so we can see nocturnal animals at a time when they will be more active. It was quite an exhibit. I enjoyed it, and most of the rest of the zoo as well.
The view of the crocodiles and alligators was interesting because we could see them above the water …
and below.
Some of animals didn't seem to have very much room to move around and definitely appeared bored. That’s sad. The National Zoo has large areas for the animals to roam, but then of course there isn't much chance of close up pictures!
The gorillas have managed to find ways to combat the boredom, however.
They spend a fair amount of time interacting with the people on the other side of the glass. I love watching the gorillas- they are so intelligent!
One gorilla has his fun at the expense of the unwary. He waits until someone is sitting in the round window, and then he runs by and bangs on the glass, startling whoever is sitting there.
We did a lot of walking, checking out the larger enclosures.
This bird was the weirdest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Pretty colors though.
Probably my favorite animals of the day were the lion cubs. They are so adorable and very curious about the people staring at them! They are almost a year old.
