Omaha Zoo, Golden Spike Tower, Fort Morgan Museum

 On Monday as we were getting ready to head out, my mom got the news that my Aunt Ragena had passed away. She was in a lot of pain and not living a good quality life so it feels a little bitter sweet. Bitter because we will miss her but sweet because she will finally be relieved from suffering. In a prayer later, Penny asked that Ragena and Isaac would have fun together. It was really sweet.

After the phone call it was time for our visit to the Omaha Zoo, it was a good distraction. Penny got a little tired and hot and whiney but I think she still had a good time. It was a big zoo and we definitely did not get to everything. Some highlights were probably feeding the fish (there were SO many), the splash pad, riding the skyfari (we are all scared of heights but we were so brave) and the rainforest building was pretty neat (although creepy with bats just hanging around un-caged). I had also promised Penny a stuffie so she ended up with a cute red panda stuffie which she later told my Aunt Irene that getting it was the favorite part of her trip.

Can you see all the bats below?

We finished up the Zoo early afternoon and then headed onward to our hotel in North Platte, Nebraska. On our way there we stopped at this hole in the wall shop called Lee's Legendary Marbles and Antiques. Lee was there and gave Penny a bag of free marbles and showed her some really cool (and really expensive marbles). I also found some Pokemon marbles for Ben, a GM one for Tyler and a cool Beer Stein for Tyler (because he likes to drink his soda out of fun drinkware). It was a fun stop. 

Our second stop was near our hotel, it was the Fort Cody Trading Post. It had a little Museum dedicated to Buffalo Bill and some fun souvenirs. We ended up getting some yummy Huckleberry Taffy, some chocolate "gold" and some candy cigarettes- I only buy quality stuff.

 

Our motel in North Platte was less than fancy. I apparently didn't do a great job of picking them this year. It smelled of strong air freshener(I ended up finding the source and turning it off) and the room was quite ancient but it gave us a place to rest and the breakfast the next morning was satisfying. 

On Tuesday we had some extra time before our next destination opened so we found a park to play in. The first playground was ghetto and surrounded by geese but then we found a better one- more new and no geese. However, there was a car that kept circling by while Penny was playing that made me nervous. I stayed close to her, sure they wanted to kidnap my pretty, blond girl.

Then it was time to visit the Golden Spike Tower. The tower looks out onto the world's largest railyard. Once again we braved heights as we stood out on the balcony and then Penny had fun coloring while I wondered the museum reading about train things and grams watched a video about the Orphan train. We also watched train cars go over a hump and get sorted to the proper train track. It was neat.

For lunch, much to Penny's despair, we ate at Village Inn. It was finally not fast food so it made my tummy very happy but for Penny, she had wanted another toy from Wendy's, so her heart was broken. She refused to admit that she actually enjoyed her chocolate milk and strawberry waffle, 2 of her favorite things.

Later we stopped at a random little museum called the Fort Morgan Museum. It wasn't anything fancy but Penny liked listening to a little Native American girl's story and then there was Jimmy at the Soda Pop Shop exhibit ;)

On our way to our hotel in Canon City, Colorado we had seen that there was a flash flood watch so when the rain started coming down super hard on the freeway, I panicked and got off the freeway and parked at the top of a hill. While it was coming down, I called Tyler and asked him to look at the weather radar for me. He informed me it was moving the opposite direction that we were going and it was moving fast. So as it slowed some I got brave and got back on the freeway. There were only a few big puddles and overall it was smooth driving after that, thankfully.

Then we picked up TV dinners and Penny did some swimming in the (too cold for me) pool and we called it a night.