Henry Doorly Zoo!

The baby robins are growing so quickly!

On Friday evening, Chelsi and I got off of work at 6 pm. We decided to make it a night to relax since we planned on getting up bright and early at 7 am on Saturday so we could be on the road to Omaha by 8 am. We got our bags and hopped into Chelsi’s car. On the road again!
We drove to Kevin’s house in Omaha, and made it there in record time. Kevin is a friend of mine who I know through one of my best friends, and he was more than happy to accompany and protect three females who were new to the area. I’m really glad he went out of his way to go with us! Once we got situated in his kitchen, he made pancakes and scrambled eggs with cheese for us. It was delicious! Thanks, Captain Crunch.
Kevin took us downstairs to his part of the house and let us put our bags there so they wouldn’t have to be left in the car all day. While downstairs, Chelsi spotted Kevin’s Fender guitar. Oh no… we won’t be leaving here anytime soon now. Jam session! Chelsi played some songs, then Kevin did. Then Chelsi spied one of her favorite songs by Kearne resting on Kevin’s piano. She politely asked him to play it, and he did. It was fun! 

After some child-like convincing, it was time to go to the Henry Doorly Zoo! I was so excited, I was regressing back into my childhood. Before we could go to the zoo, we had to secure our reservation at the Relax Inn motel right down the street from Kevin’s house. He drove us there and we got our room. The man was so nice, he gave us the room for the price of 2 people instead of 3. Good start to the day!
We were at the Henry Doorly Zoo for 5 hours. That was barely enough time! Henry Doorly is the second largest zoo in the world. They had every kind of animal you could imagine. Aardvarks, slow loris...
        My favorite was the Aquarium, because it was like you were underwater when you really weren’t. We sat down and were transfixed by the huge sting rays who would glide so effortlessly past us, over and over. There were also quite a few sharks, and it was really fascinating seeing all of their crooked, sharp teeth. It was in the Aquarium that I was approached by a really strange looking man… he sat down next to me, and started inching closer and closer… and when I wasn’t looking, he tapped rather hard on my shoulder and said “Look at that nurse shark!” I grabbed Kevin and said, “KEVIN… look at the nurse shark KEVIN!” The man left me alone once he realized Kevin was with us, thank goodness! They had so many neat things in the aquarium, like huge yellow sea turtles and HUGE sharks with lots and lots of teeth! Even though it was 100 degrees inside, it felt like you were breathing through a sponge, and we were shoulder to shoulder with people and strollers... it was definitely worth it. Here are some pictures from the aquarium:

The Desert Dome was awesome too, because I got to see really cute Tapirs and pygmy hippos! I also enjoyed the butterfly habitat where you could go inside and the butterflies could land on you. We got to see lemurs, gorillas, and even got to see a baby gorilla! I took over 550 pictures, but I chose my favorites and will include them at the end of the blog. If you want to click on a picture, it should enlarge on your screen so you can see it better. I still cannot figure out how to make them bigger on this blog without cutting them in half. Here are some pictures from the inside of the Desert Dome:

           We decided to take the Skyfari to check out the zoo from the air. That's me on the left, and Kevin on the right.

           There were a ton of monkeys all around the zoo. Here are some pictures (there is one picture of a female gorilla hanging from the ceiling! I could only get one good picture. There is also a baby gorilla!): 

            They also had a butterfly habitat where you could go inside and see the butterflies in their natural habitat. You had to be careful not to step on any of them, and before you left you had to check for hitch-hikers. I know I always have pictures of the native butterfly species on here, but here are some cool ones I've never seen before (the last two pictures are actually of Ghost Mantis):

            There was also an aviary:

        The lemurs were really cool too. They enjoyed posing for us!

The coolest thing about the zoo is that they have a dozen or so female and male peacocks who have free reign over the area. They go where they want when they want, and do whatever they want. They also eat whatever they want! We watched one go to town on an abandoned gummy worm. You should hear the calls the males would make! It was so cool, the three of us girls couldn’t stop mimicking the sound the entire day. They’d let you get really close to them, too. They just walk wherever they want to! I took a million pictures of them, but the coolest thing happened right before we were about to leave.

The zoo had emptied out because we had closed it down. As we were walking, I turn around and look at a peacock who has just called. Next thing you know, his feathers are on display! Allison freaks out and starts running towards him. Thinking that the second she gets close he will run away, we stand and laugh at her. 30 seconds go by, and he’s still on display. We all start running over (I bet we looked like idiots). Sure enough, he just looks at us, feathers out and beautiful, and lets us take pictures. Right behind him there is a small female peacock not giving him a bit of attention. He even danced for us! He would turn around and wiggle his behind-feathers. It was HILARIOUS. He was so beautiful! He stayed ruffled up until we got bored of him and decided to leave. Have you heard the sound that the really colorful bird in the movie Up makes? That is the same sound a peacock makes. It was so awesome hearing them call from across the park and trying to guess where they were. If you look at the picture below, he let us stand really close to him and he even danced in circles for us!

Once we left the zoo, Kevin took us to downtown Omaha to the Old Market. They had a festival going on called The Taste of Omaha, and it’s where all the restaurants in Omaha have booths and tents out on the banks of the river and you buy tickets and then you can get whatever food and drink you like. There was live music, so we walked over to where all the action was and I decided I wanted to try some roasted sweet corn. Boy, am I glad I bought that! Excellent purchase. I could have eaten that forever. All hot and juicy wrapped in foil… just add some salt and go to town. Ahhh-mazing. 

After we had indulged ourselves on that delicious corn, we sat and watched the huge water fountain in the middle of the water change colors and patterns. Time passed, and we grew hungry for dinner. Kevin knew just the place. He took us downtown to a place called Spaghetti Works. We walked in and the first thing I saw was a man sitting at the bar enjoying a drink with a blue Macaw parrot sitting on his shoulder. 
I had chicken fettuccine alfredo and a delicious peach Italian soda. I had no idea that Omaha was so big on Italian soda until I saw that they had a ton of flavors and even sold crazy stuff like “chocolate cherry”! Dinner was delicious and when we were trying to figure out what to do next, we girls were really wiped out so we decided to go back to the motel and call it a night. We got back and watched a little bit of X-Men before we all passed out. I was so tired that I didn’t even care about my sound machine. 

We had planned on getting up early on Sunday to meet Kevin and his dad for a movie by 11 am. Well, that didn’t happen. We were all so exhausted that we slept through my alarm. Finally I had to wake them up and ask them what they wanted to do. Turns out the movie didn’t work out, but we ended up doing lunch instead.
“We want comfort food”, the girls said. “I know just the place!” Kevin replied with absolutely no hesitation. Off to the Bohemian Café to eat an authentic Czech lunch. Or, as they say in Omaha: an authentic Czech “supper”. I had just bought a Pepsi from the gas station, so when we ordered I asked for a glass of ice and thought nothing of it. She brought me a glass with ice, so I took my Pepsi and poured it into the glass. We all figured out what we wanted and the waitress walked by and said in a stern voice to me, “Don’t pour anymore pop into that glass.” Confused, I waited until she came back. I asked her what I did wrong and she explained to me that it is illegal to bring outside drink into this restaurant and that she could get in a lot of trouble. Genuinely surprised, I apologized to her and said that I did not know, and told her I was not from around here (that seems to work every time). She laughed and asked me not to do it again because there might be liquor inside my bottle, and I told her I did not intentionally mean to place either of us into a bad situation. She smiled and jokingly said “Well it would have been you to be arrested, not me!” Kevin interjected and said sarcastically, “Yeah, it’s 1 pm on a Sunday… she’s definitely got liquor in that bottle.” The waitress then told us that we’d be surprised how many times that happens. Oops! I learned my lesson. 

I ordered a dinner that consisted of turkey, stuffing, “whipped potatoes”, gravy, and cranberry sauce. Czech Thanksgiving! It was delicious. It was so delicious that I pretty much ate the entire thing, and it was enough to feed two people! Chelsi and Allison both got the pork goulash. It looked good, too. The biggest surprise came at the end of the meal because this place had KOLACHES! Or, “Kolacky” on the menu. I refused to let Allison or Chelsi leave without having their VERY FIRST kolache! (I'm not sure if Allison meant to do the inappropriate gesture she's making with her hand or not... so I decided to include it regardless.)

I convinced the girls that apricot kolaches are the best, and so we all got that kind. Kevin got a poppy seed kolache. They came to us warm and enticing… I wanted to freeze the moment so I could remember the smell and taste of that delicious kolache. The girls were happy and I was fuller than I’d ever been. Perfect time to head to the mall to buy some jeans!
We made our way to the West Roads mall, and Kevin met us there. We shopped for a really long time, and I got to replace some clothing items that our washing machine had destroyed. We closed the mall down, and hopped back into the car to head back to good old Beatrice.
We got home and unpacked, and Chelsi made us quesadillas for dinner. I asked her if I could include her recipe on my blog so people could make them if they wanted to. Here’s the recipe!
What you’ll need:
Flour tortillas
Olive oil
Ground beef
Grated cheese
1 small chopped onion
1 chopped red bell pepper
1 small chopped red tomato

Take a sauce pan and put some olive oil on the bottom. Then, add your ground beef and cook until brown and fully done. Add one small chopped onion, 1 chopped red bell pepper, and one cut up red tomato. Combine these ingredients. Add the grated cheese on top of the browned meat. Mix it all together. Take another pan that will fit the tortillas. Add some olive oil to the bottom. Place one flour tortilla in the bottom, and add some of the mix. Flatten the mix out and add another tortilla on top, “like a tortilla sandwich,” said Chelsi. Once the bottom tortilla is crispy, flip it over and brown the other side. Then you can cut it into fourths and have a delicious dinner!

On Monday, we got up at 10 because we wanted to “Czech” out Wilber. I went into the living room and had a message on the machine from a lady at the Education Center saying that a box had arrived for me. I walked to her office and got it. When I got home, I felt like a 3 year old boy on Christmas Day. I opened the box (which was from my Nana and Poppi), dug through the bubble wrap and strange metallic padding to find a plastic box filled to the rim with BROWNIES! Yum! That was the perfect start to the day. I called my grandparents later to thank them, and my Nana told me that Poppi and Kyla, my little red-headed cousin, had made them for me. AWW… so precious. I’m eating the brownies as I write this blog!

Allison was supposed to be on a plane that morning, but some complications had arisen so she was here until 6 pm. We hopped in my car and drove to Wilber. It’s only about 30 minutes away, and the sky was cloudy and it was slightly rainy which made the drive absolutely stunning. It felt like we were in a movie. Here are some cool facts about the city of Wilber.
-This community was written about in Willa Cather’s My Antonia. 
-The Wilber Czech Festival was then in its infancy and was a meeting place for homesick Czechs, eager to wear their traditional festival costumes, play their music, dance, drink and feast together with friends and relatives.
-Many Czech settlers traveled a long way and took great pains to attend the festival.
-You can find Czech specialty meats like Jelita (Blood sausage), and Jaternice (White sausage) and the “Wilber Weiner”, all made using “old country” family recipes. 
-Baked goods like kolaches (a traditional Czech pastry) and Houska (a raisin and nut filled bread) and the popular Wilber rye bread are wonderful treats

Too bad everything was closed on Mondays! We were really disappointed to find Wilber Bakery to be closed, and also the Czech Cottage. The Czech Cottage features Czech imports and antiques; as well as, the Cottage Book Nook, which has over 1,000 volumes of used books. It is also one of the first buildings built in Wilber. We were so sad… so we made our way to the only building with an “open” sign. Just so happened to be Karpisek’s Meat Market, home of the “Wilber Weiner”. We walked in, and it was this quaint little shop. Chelsi purchased some authentic Czech jerky, and I could not leave this town without some kolaches. I ordered a plate of 8 apple kolaches, and it was only $4! Kolache Depot in Ennis can’t beat that.
We walked around and did some exploring, and took some pictures of the “Czech Capital of Nebraska”. Good thing Ennis is not full of colorful buildings and crazy patterns. Wilber is a real Czech town!
We came back into town because Allison wanted to attend the Naturalization Ceremony being held at the Education Center, and Chelsi wasn’t feeling well at all. I dropped them off and got in my car, and went to Lincoln. My goal was to find a Panera Bread deli so I could get a decent salad and also have free WiFi to work on my blog. After all that heavy food this weekend, all I wanted was a salad! Was that too much to ask? Apparently to my GPS, it would end up being way too much to ask.
I plugged in “Panera”, and yet my Garmin took me to a huge shopping center where a Panera Bread was NOT present. After driving in circles for a long time and listening to my stomach grumble, I decided to eat at Red Robin. I got a wrap and relaxed for a little while, and was amazed because my meal came with two slices of watermelon. Yum! After I finished eating, I decided to check out the two shopping centers that my Garmin had led me to. I found this neat little soda shop called “Rocket Fizz”. I bought a bottle of “Strawberry Pop” and some saltwater taffy to bring home to Chelsi. The strawberry “pop” (they say ‘pop’ here, for some reason) was different but good. I want to take Chelsi back to that little shop. According to their sign, they have the “worlds largest soda pop selection”! Walking in and seeing the walls and walls and shelves of nothing but soda I’ve never heard of, I believe them.
After some shopping, I headed back to Beatrice. I got home and did some cleaning. This week, it’s just Chelsi and me since Allison is gone. Hopefully this week will be fun, and then it’s Homestead Days! There will be a lot going on then. Homestead Days begin on Friday, so I probably will not be able to write another blog about that for a little while. When Allison left, she took our internet with her! I am currently sitting in the local Arby's, and it's taken almost 4 hours to load all of these pictures. I had to share them! I plan on coming back tomorrow to write another blog about Tuesday and Wednesday's experiences. It will not be this long! I will close with some more pictures I felt should be included.

*I apologize for the format of this blog, I was in a hurry and Arby's doesn't really like when you sit around in their restaurant for 6 hours in one night. :)