Omaha day two…….

I didn't get too good a nights sleep last night, i think its just the change of scenery every night, the different beds and maybe the 12 hours of driving the day before!

I woke around 6:00am (or so i thought!) and surfed around online for over an hour before i heard Beth and her mom and dad wake up a while later and asked me to come down to join them for breakfast. Cereal, toast and cranberry juice:) it was then i noticed the clock on the microwave , it said 7:30am, this confused me a little as i knew id been up for more than an hour at least  and it was then i realised that although i had put the clock in my car back an hour yesterday onto central time i hadn't changed the clock on my laptop! so this morning when i was surfing around at what i thought was 6am was actually 5am!!

Beth's mom and dad had plans mid morning today and would be back around 10:30, Beth wanted to go to the store for something so i offered to take her and her mom and drive them back. I drove down to pick Kami up around ten thirty, i sat in Sue's Kitchen and watched the deer's in the back garden for 15 minutes while i waited for Kami to get ready.

We then headed back up to the house and Kami Beth, Ellie and i drove in my car to the store and Beth's dad drive there in his truck, we met up at Paneras and had a sandwich and sop for lunch before driving over to Kohl's and dropping Beth and Ellie off. Kami and i walked up the street to Wal-Mart and although i saw a few mullets around the store it was possible for me to take pictures of them. My good friend Chris M is a huge fan of the pictures of Wal-Mart store and id promised him id try to snap a few pictures while i was going around the US. There was one lady that had obviously had her grey hair dyed Ginger at some point but hadn't had it cut since it her roots had grown out, however this must have been several months if not years ago as the first 12 inches of her hair was now grey and the bottom 8 inches was ginger!!

After wondering round looking for mullets Kami and i went back to the car and Beth and Ellie had just finished shopping. Beth began to tell me about the bridge to nowhere and said we would go see it before the show, i was intrigued!

After getting back to Beth's parents Kami and i went back down to Sue's and i took Dinah the dog for a walk.

Walking Dinah                          Deer in woods behind Sue's house
 

Kami got ready for tonight's show and we headed back up to the other house. I jumped in the shower and freshened up and Susan and her husband Mike picked us all up in their minivan at around 4:00, we had booked a restaurant for 5:30 in downtown Omaha.

We first headed out to the”bridge to nowhere” this is a bridge that was built a few years ago from one side of the river to the other, the bridge spans the state of Nebraska and the state of Iowa.

All of us on the windy bridge!               Kami and Beth in different states!        Me in both states

   

Panorama of the bridge to nowhere:

At the Iowa side of the bridge there is literally nothing!! it just ends in fields of marshes and swamps!

    

After walking back over the bridge and back to the minivan we drove 5 minutes towards the restaurant and parked the car.

The restaurant was very similar to the one we all ate at in Washington DC a couple of weeks ago, it was primarily a steak house but also had salads, pasta and burgers. I went for the rib eye steak while Beth, Sue and Mike went for the House special which was an Omaha Fillet.

 

We had a great chat over dinner of how Sue had met Mike. Beth's husband mark used to fly B52 bombers in the air force and his navigator later became Beth's sisters husband! it was fun hearing stories of the B52 flights and one especially which Beth typed up below for my blog:

“Some of you know that Gonzo was a former B52 pilot. During the time that he was a co-pilot and a young first lieutenant (1979-1981) we were stationed at Minot AFB in North Dakota, and every crew in the bomb squadron took a turn being deployed to Guam for a month doing training exercises. The guys would go over with shopping lists for rosewood, jade, opals, pearls, and bigger furniture items like roll-top desks with in-laid jade on marble tops. Since they couldn’t leave the island of Guam in the bomber, the tanker (air refueling) crews could fly down to the Philippines with the shopping lists and fill the orders. They would bring back all the stuff to Guam, and transfer it over to the B52’s Where do you store papasan chairs and roll-top desks… why in the bomb bays of course. Since the training exercises didn’t require the use of conventional weapons, there was plenty of room in the bomb bay to strap down all this furniture and bring it back to Minot.
As we were relaying this story to Simon, I jumped in with “I bet tonight when Roger plays ‘Goodbye, Blue sky’ and you’re looking at the backdrop of the bombers and the bomb bay doors opening, you’ll think of roll-top desks falling out of the sky…..”
 
Sure enough at that nights show and the subsequent nights I've thought of that roll top desk falling from the animation:)
Kami and i headed down to the venue around 7pm as we were meeting up with Dave K before the show for a chat, we met up with the others before the start of the show and i told Beth and Kami i would see what i could d about bringing them down to the floor for the second half.
More pictures from the day in Omaha:

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Omaha day one continued….

So Beth, Kami and i walked over to Beth's sister Sue's for her to introduce me and figure out what time we were meeting tomorrow and meeting up for the show etc.

Her sister lived about a 10 minute walk away in a real nice neighbourhood and the area that backs onto their house is a mass of wild turkey's, squirrels, birds and wild deer! Its a real woodland type neighbourhood and Susan pointed out to me there was a Jogging/running track right across the street. I hadn't run for a few days but I'd also just driven 730 miles in just under 12 hours so didn't feel like going for a run now and wasn't really sure how i would feel in the morning, I'd also just had the biggest shock of my life with Kami jumping out of the closet and it was still sinking in that Her and Beth had pulled something like that off to surprise me!

I met Sue and one of her sons and Beth arranged the details for them to pick us up tomorrow around 4:30 to head down to the venue, see a little of downtown Omaha and to have dinner before the show.

Susan's family had a beautiful dog called Dinah and as most people who know me I'm a huge animal lover and would love to live in an area like they do with the wild deer running around in the back fields.

  
We walked back over Beth's parents and hung out and chatted in the living room for a couple of hours, just talking about travel, the UK, the USA and me trying to explain to Beth's dad the idea behind the game of cricket!! Kami, Beth and i watched a bit of TV before Beth went to bed after an hour, i then drove Kami down to Sue's where she ws staying and i headed back up to Beth's parents where i was staying.