Last week, I finished up my Portugal series with a post about the beautiful Algarve region. This week, we go midwest local because our very next trip was to…Omaha. Wah. Wah. I’ve been to Omaha plenty because my grandparents lived there. While most people actively avoid Nebraska, my family was going there twice a year every single year. Typically, we spend our time visiting family instead of seeing the sites. But, I knew that there must be something more to Omaha if Warren Buffett still calls it home. This summer my family, my parents, and my sister’s family decided to do something different with our grandparent trip. We did visit Grandma, but we also decided to see a few of the sites. It was my husband’s first time in Nebraska and I will echo his reaction to the weekend: Nebraska was, surprisingly, a fun place to visit.
Henry Doorly Zoo
Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo claims to be the #1 zoo in the country, even better than the San Diego Zoo. When I saw that, I thought “no way” until I talked to a friend from the area who very seriously told me that if it wasn’t the #1 zoo, it was probably tied with San Diego. I didn’t believe her either until I walked in and realized that this zoo is something special. It’s also about $50 cheaper per person to go to the Omaha Zoo than the San Diego Zoo so I felt like the whole day was a steal.
First of all, the zoo is huge. If we’d wanted to see it all, we’d probably need two days. The first thing you see is a huge desert dome and then a short walk away is an aquarium. This wasn’t just a building with a few fish, it had a huge shark tank and tunnel, jellyfish, penguins, and many other creatures. It rivaled much larger aquariums. We were lucky enough to get there for both the penguin and shark-feeding, plus saw a bonus sea turtle feeding to boot.
There were plenty of places to get lunch, but you can also bring your own food and picnic inside the zoo. After lunch, we took the Skyfari Ride to the other side of the park and saw lions, rhinos, elephants, and giraffes along the way. My niece, later, got to feed one of the giraffes for $5 a branch.
By 4pm we were tired, so we left, leaving half the zoo unseen. Something to do next time, I guess!
Fun-Plex
The next day, we were going to see Fontenelle Forest, which is a nature preserve in Southwest Omaha. I think we would have had a lot of fun doing that. But, my sister found another attraction called Fun-Plex which is a combination water and ride park not far from where we stayed in La Vista. It was a cute little water park, easily visited in an afternoon. We rented a cabana so we had a home base and had plenty of time to ride all of the slides, visit the wave pool, and hang out on the lazy river. The best part about this park was that it was not very crowded on the Sunday we went. The lines were short and the weather was great. My Aunt Rhonda joined us for part of the day. We’re really glad we went.
Morning in Lincoln, NE
We also have family in Lincoln, NE, so we spent a morning there as well. Lincoln is the Capital city and boasts a large university, stadium, and Capitol building. There are bike trails everywhere and the whole downtown has a very Madison-esque vibe. Lincoln is definitely worth a visit if you’re in that part of the country. It seems like Nebraska should just be corn fields and nothingness, but both Omaha and Lincoln would beg to differ (that’s further down I-80 if you keep driving past Lincoln). We had a lovely time hanging out with our family at Antelope Park and enjoying the beautiful weather. (Although, it’s worth mentioning that there were crazy thunderstorms every night we were in Nebraska, some causing damage.)
So, if you’re passing through Omaha and need a break, I highly recommend the zoo or any of the other attractions in town. Sadly, we didn’t get to try much of the food. With a big family to please, we ended up going to chain restaurants. Not really my thing, but it was fun to see everyone nonetheless.