You not only can’t make ME up, you’d be hard pressed to make up half the stuff I write, but yes, for sure, Bowling for Soup _IS_ a musical group, and “(Ready or not) Omaha, Nebraska” really _IS_ the name of a song they’ve recorded. Look it up. If you want. 🙂
When we left Fargo, ND on Friday morning, the really great news is that we were not on any deadline, for the first time in the trip. No rushing to make a train to the top of a mountain, or a baseball game. We could simply breathe and take our time.
No need to stop for a photo op at the South Dakota state line … we already have one from a few years ago. But, I guess Gerry is so conditioned, he took one anyway, as we tooled along the interstate. going 80 mph. LOL (Trust me that it DOES say “Welcome to South Dakota.” LOL)
And … we stopped for lunch at what I like to call, America’s Mother Ship: Cracker Barrel. lol
There is something very soothing about Cracker Barrel restaurants — the way they ALL have the EXACT SAME LAY OUT, the same olde style latticed walls. same 1950’s candy for sale in the gift shop (probably left over from the 50’s), same rocking chairs on the porch, same mediocre comfort food on the menu. They’ve capitalized on old fashioned SAMENESS! It was the perfect stop over!
Due to some summer construction (which I have specifically avoided mentioning, despite the numerous sites we dealt with along the way), we were slightly re-routed on our way into Omaha, and subsequently (and MUCH to our disappointment) NEVER ACTUALLY SAW the (or ANY, for that matter) “Welcome to Nebraska” sign (!!!)
If you look at the map, the Interstate moves straight down, just west of the South Dakoka / Minnesota line, and then hangs a left into Iowa. As we counted down the exits on the drive south through South Dakota (and not realizing that fact), we both said aloud, “Welcome to _IOWA_???” LOL
It’s all good. Here’s what the actual “Welcome to Nebraska” sign looks like:
And here was the reasonable facsimile that Gerry snapped (while we were at a stop light, having already arrived in Omaha proper) shortly before arriving at our downtown Omaha hotel:
Yes, we’d made it to our 49th State!
Arriving at our hotel, we found ourselves in The Future … or at least 180 degrees from the C’Mon Inn back in Fargo. lol
Call me an old-fashioned gal, but I found myself longing for the rustic affectations of the C’Mon Inn! LOL
Nevertheless, we settled in, and shortly thereafter embarked on a city adventure: I found a place for dinner, where they also had ::drumroll;: KARAOKE!!! (My son remarked on an accompanying Facebook post … “Of course you found karaoke in Omaha.” Uhhh, well, YA! ) We drove over & found parking a few blocks away from our destination:
Yes, the place is called, “Moe and Curly’s”. Upon going inside, we saw …
And … despite inexplicably not being included in the title …
I honestly don’t care enough to try and find out WHY, but … what could the reason be they decided NOT to call the place “Moe, Larry & Curly’s”?? Weird ….
The food was gross, to be honest, and good thing the Cracker Barrel fare was still stickin’ to our ribs, but the singing was fun.
(Ohhhh, honey …. the trouble is DEFINITELY NOT with my line, my dears! LOL) I’m sure my sister is horrified that I still haven’t given up singing Reba McIntyre, but so be it. Sang two songs, and they got me up almost right away, and we were on our way back to the EVEN hotel within an hour. Good fun!
On the way back to the hotel, since the fancy-schmancy EVEN Hotel didn’t _even_ have a complimentary breakfast, but rather a foufy (is that a word? if not, it should be) breakfast menu, that required pre-ordering and a QR code (forget it!), we decided to grab some breakfast items from:
(is it only me, or is the name of this shop a tad inappropriate? What-evs …)
Thanks to the recommendation of a friend (and former Omaha resident) we decided to take in the Old Market area in the morning. The Old Market is a sort of South Street Seaport (NYC) meets Faneuil Hall (Boston) meets a farmer’s market. A fun visit! Here are some highlights:
BEST laugh of the morning! And one BRILLIANT marketing campaign! lol
It was then time to check out of the EVEN, and make our way to another highlight … the OMAHA ZOO!! What a fantastic place!! (Well … if you like zoos …. it’s one of the best!)
I will again simply include photos, with a comment here & there:
We left the zoo, and headed out of town, on our way to our final vacation spot: Liberty, Missouri, and the home of our friends, the Bridgemans. That visit will be the next and final post of this series.
As we drove out of Omaha, the last sight we saw before hitting the Interstate, was a restaurant that seems like it USED TO BE a Burger King, but has now been transformed into:
Yep. “King Kong Burger.” I guess seeing this makes up for the fact that we didn’t get to see the gorillas & apes in the zoo. LOL
And that wraps up our stop in my _49th_ state!!