Omaha, Nebraska Day One

 Despite my rule of not going to the same place twice, we made an exception to go back to Omaha with Kim and Cynthia. It's just too great of a place not to share! 

We left at 0 dark thirty (aka 5:45am) and had an uneventful 6-hour drive to Omaha. 

First stop was the Kiewit Luminarium. (I still don't know what that means but it's a fun new science museum right on the river) Kim and Cynthia played a bit in the super cool playground while Chris and I ate our lunch. But it looked like so much fun that Chris joined in and climbed to the top of the "spider web rocket" so they could go down the slides... :) 

So many fun things at the Luminarium to see, touch, explore, learn, create, play with... We had a great time there! 

All that learning makes you hungry and despite the strange name we went for an early supper at The Old Mattress Factory. No, we didn't eat mattresses but we did have some tasty food! Thanks to the recommendation from a friend at church. Yum!

In order to walk off all that food, we went back downtown to walk the Gene Leahy Mall, River Front and across the Bob into Iowa. Oh, and we stopped to play some more at the playground... :) 

We didn't get any pictures of it but our favorite thing at the playground was the zip line! 

It is so neat that they light up the entire playground so it can stay open late for families to stay... 

All that walking made us hungry for ice cream but too tired to do anything else but crash once we got to the house... Whew!

Madison, Wisconsin Day Three

Summer Saturday mornings often mean Farmers' Markets. And Madison boasts America's largest producer-only market. It just might be. It fills all four streets around the state capital grounds. It was a great place to try all kinds of delicious local delicacies and buy super fresh locally grown produce. We did both...

This was truly the cheesiest and most delicious warm bread we've ever had! 

Then because we hadn't already had enough cheese in the past couple of days, we stopped at two cheese shops on the way out of town to bring some home with us...

Madison, Wisconsin Day Two - Part 2

 On our way back to Madison from "The Wacky House" (my words, not theirs...) we got side tracked by the National Mustard Museum in Middleton boasting "The World's Largest Collection of Mustard" (their words, not mine..). But I'm guessing it's true. There were so many mustards on display and so many delicious mustards to sample thanks to their very knowledgeable "mustard sommelier" (again, my words, not theirs...) I don't think I've ever eaten so many tiny spoonfuls of mustard in my life. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever eaten tiny spoonfuls of mustard before ever in my life. It was worth the stop and we brought home a box of mustard and a shirt to prove it.

After the Mustard Museum detour, we made our way back to Madison and visited both the zoo and the botanical gardens because both were FREE!

The zoo was closing in about an hour and maybe the animals had already had enough of gawking tourists because many of them were nowhere to be seen. But you don't mind much when it's free... 

The Botanical Garden was very nicely laid out but was probably gorgeous a few weeks earlier when everything was in bloom! 

All that walking makes a person hungry. So we finished the day with disappointing brats and cheese curds downtown (there are a LOT of college kids downtown even in the summer on a Friday night) and some German bierocks at a little strip mall bar with live music.