Whenever a family goes on a trip, there is but one important rule. Thy must consume tasty tacos. Actually, that's not the one rule (even though it is very important). The one rule is that it needs to be fun for the kids. Fortunately for Ellie and Ethan, our quick little family vacation to Omaha last week was just that.
As most could guess, the pandemic has made vacation travel a little more difficult than in years past. The last thing anyone wants to do right now is get on an airplane to travel to a jam-packed tourist destination. Why do that when you can instead travel a couple of hours north on I-29 to Omaha, NE and check out the Henry Doorly Zoo (which has over 2 million visitors every year).
While we could definitely do a trip to Omaha and back in one day, we decided to make it more of a special experience. For one thing, our friend, Emily, would be joining us for this trip. We met her a couple of years ago while leading our college life group. Since then, she and Bethany have been close friends. For the record, Ellie also completely adores her! Rather than stay in a hotel on this trip, we instead found an awesome Airbnb with two bedrooms less than five minutes away from the zoo.
We left around for Omaha last Thursday around 12:30 when Emily got off work and made it to Omaha around 3:00. While it was a fairly uneventful drive, there was one thing of note. You see, like any one-year-old ever, Ethan tends to get really bored whenever he's locked into his car seat for long periods of time. When he gets bored, it's only a matter of time until he gets upset. When he gets upset, there's only one thing that can calm him down: listening to Cocomelon's version of "Wheels on the Bus" over and over and over again. As you can probably guess, that's exactly what we had to do. It sends a shudder down my spine all over again just thinking about hearing that song over and over and over.
After checking into our Airbnb, the five of us took some time to relax before heading to the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge. Bob the Bridge as it likes to be called (not kidding) stretches across the Missouri River connecting Nebraska and Iowa. It's actually a pretty cool experience to walk across it since at one particular point, you can find yourself straddling the line between Nebraska and Iowa. After finishing our walk across the bridge, we headed back to our Airbnb for the night, stopping to pick up some authentic street tacos from a food truck along the way. My mouth is seriously watering just thinking about them.
The next day, after waking up around 7:00, I wandered a block over to a local bakery to buy donuts for our breakfast. When I returned "home", I found Ellie and Emily in the midst of their own little spa day as Emily was painting an excited Ellie's toenails bright blue. After consuming our donuts and preparing our lunches for the day, we loaded up around 9:00 and headed to the zoo.
After arriving, the very first thing we did was head to check out the giraffes and elephants followed shortly thereafter by heading into the African Grasslands exhibit. There wasn't a ton of excitement there within until we reached the brand new lion exhibit. That's where Ethan began to get really excited. From his comfy perch in a hiking carrier on my back, he began pointing at the lions while enthusiastically saying "Cat!".
From there, we wandered through the Asian Highlands exhibits (home to another "Cat" sighting in a tiger) and into the Gorilla Valley. The Gorilla Valley was pretty cool. That was especially true due to the presence of a baby gorilla that made its home there. In fact, both Ellie and Ethan were absolutely transfixed as they watched the baby alternate between snuggling with its mother and playing with anything and everything.
Our next stop was honestly the highlight of the zoo trip for me as we headed to the new Sea Lion Pavilion. While I've seen sea lions at the zoo before, I've never seen them like this. For starters, the entire attraction is made to resemble a sea lion's home environment. The most impressive part was when we wandered into an underwater viewing area and watched as the sea lions deftly flew through the water next to the glass time and time again. As for the kids, Ellie absolutely loved it which was proven by the fact that we could barely pull her away from the glass. Ethan probably would have loved it but unfortunately he had fallen asleep in his carrier on my back.
After a quick lunch break, we then headed to the Desert Dome, Aquarium, and the Jungle before calling it a day five hours after we began. After loading up in the car, we made a quick sojourn to a nearby ice cream place for some frozen treats before resuming our trip home and bringing an end to a great little vacation.
There is one thing that needs to be said though. I'm already craving some more of those authentic street tacos. I've already broached the topic with my wife of making a trip to Omaha for some more this weekend. Sadly, she is not in favor of that idea. #DaddyWrite
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