PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES

Our long weekend (left Friday morning and returned Monday evening) was dominated by all three modes of travel – airplane, locomotive and car.  Guess we covered the ship travel a few weeks ago. J

We were awakened by the alarm at the ungodly hour of 2:45 AM on Friday to catch our 6 AM flight to Omaha. Upon landing in Nebraska at 12:40 PM, we hit the ground running. The weather was looking ominous, not to mention cold and windy, so Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum with its striking pink marble art deco exterior was a good first stop.

The exterior of the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha

A fountain in the indoor courtyard garden of the Joslyn

An interesting flower in the Joslyn courtyard

Union Pacific Railroad Museum - we went back on a rain free day for this photo.

I was enthralled by the works of a now deceased Omaha area artist named Kent Bellows. His paintings and pencil drawings captured expressions with amazing realism which looked more like photographs. Here is a link to some of his work: http://kentbellows.com/Site/Art%20Gallery.html

From there we headed to the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs, Iowa, just across the Missouri River. The museum sponsored the Saturday train ride for its 50^th Anniversary which was our main purpose for this trip. Let me just clarify that although I had a son who was a total train buff growing up and now have a significant other who has turned into a midlife train buff, I’m just not that into trains. But it was an excuse to visit a new area of our country so I did my best to enjoy the tons of train related stuff.

After dinner at the Cracker Barrel, we headed to the Premier Suites to check in. It was now dark and rainy and really cold outside. On the way from Council Bluffs to Omaha, we noticed that it had started snowing! It was their first snowfall of the season and we Californians were out driving in it! We made it to the hotel where snow continued to fall much of the night. Just 11 days before we were lounging on the beach on Grand Turk in the balmy Caribbean.

The parking lot from our hotel window about 10 PM - that's our car in the left bottom

We were concerned about getting safely to the train station for our 7 AM train ride the next morning but it turned out to be no problem since the snow had stopped and all the main streets were plowed before we even woke up.

Our car was covered by several inches of snow. There are some REALLY good times to have a man around – like when there is a huge spider in the bathroom or your car is covered with snow. Men are fixers so my thought was this is a great time to just let him “fix”. I made my way out into the elements after the windows were clear and the car was all warmed up. As we started down the hotel driveway, Lou accelerated to about 20 mph and hit the brakes saying he wanted to make sure the car stopped without sliding. It stopped just fine, but all the snow on the roof flew down onto the windshield and hood! Just a bit more scraping.

We made our way to the train station where we slogged through half melted snow and mud to find our seats on the 1927 Columbine car. The historic train traveled to Bailey Yard, the country's largest classification yard, in North Platte, Nebraska - roundtrip of 572 miles. On the outbound trip we were pulled by the Union Pacific No. 844 steam engine and a diesel engine on the return.

It quickly became apparent that many of the passengers were what Lou calls “foamers” – people who “foam at the mouth” regarding anything to do with trains. It was fun and interesting but a bit too long for me – 14 plus hours on a train with no chance to get off and stretch was more than enough. Maybe they were giving us a real taste of train travel. We barely got a glimpse of the steam engine since we were many cars back. Thank goodness I brought a book – or two.

One of the historic dome cars on our train

Us on our 1927 Columbine passenger car

We passed the 844 after switching to our diesel engine

The control tower (or whatever it's called) at Bailey Yard in North Platte

Sunday was our sightseeing day. Being in the midwestern “Bible belt”, we discovered that literally nothing is open until 1 PM on Sunday – you are supposed to be in church, not gallivanting around doing fun things. We took this opportunity to drive to downtown Omaha where we could navigate the one way streets and explore the area without any traffic.

There is a six block area of downtown with bronze sculptures depicting the pioneers on wagon trains, a stampeding herd of bison and a flock of geese who were disturbed by the bison. The more than one hundred bronze creatures are everywhere! It was a great concept and we enjoyed it immensely.

One of 4 wagon train sculptures with a horseman in the background

A bison startling a flock of geese

From there we drove 50 miles to Lincoln for a tour (at 1 PM!) of the Nebraska State Capitol – an incredible art deco building that is different from most state capitols in that it is 14+ stories tall and looked like a cathedral inside. Our guide, a slim (probably gay) young man named Jaimeson, who was wearing a purple shirt and red tie, proceeded to give us one of the most informative and insightful tours we’ve had. His passion and enthusiasm for his state and his job was contagious. Nebraska is the only state in the U.S. to have a unicameral system - just one legislative branch instead of two.

The 14 story (plus dome) Nebraska Capitol Building in Lincoln

The unicameral legislative chamber

We headed back to Omaha in time to visit the Durham Museum before closing – yet another of the train themed museums on the area. This one is housed in an old art deco train station but it did have a lot of other exhibits in addition to the train cars.

The Durham Museum, a former art deco Union Pacfic Train Station

Inside the Durham train station lobby

Our “farewell dinner” was in the “Old Market” neighborhood of Omaha – an area of downtown with many restaurants, bars and shops. We have visited many cities – Denver, Oklahoma City, Omaha – that have a street (or several blocks) where locals and tourists alike go for food and lively entertainment. It makes me wonder why we don’t seem to have areas like that in Sacramento or the Bay Area.

Before our afternoon flight on Monday we drove to yet another railroad museum, Railswest, that was closed on Mondays but we were able to take a few photos of the engines and railroad cars on display. We knew the General Dodge House (he was a Union Pacific railroad baron) in Council Bluffs  was also closed on Mondays but drove by to take some exterior photos. While walking around the outside of the house, we peeked in the window on the front door. Several women were inside decorating it for Christmas – one woman came over, opened the door and invited us in to take a look at the downstairs rooms. We have concluded that the Midwestern people are extremely friendly and accommodating!

General Dodge House in Council Bluffs, Iowa

We ended our quick trip of planes, trains and automobiles with a stroll across the recently constructed Senator Bob Kerrey Footbridge over the Missouri River between Iowa and Nebraska.

The Bob Kerrey Footbridge across the Missouri River

A view of downtown Omaha from the Iowa side of the bridge

Our long weekend was a whirlwind tour of Omaha, Lincoln and Council Bluffs but we managed to see just about everything we had on our list and then some. As always, we needed to get home so we could rest!