Memorial Day

For Memorial Day weekend, Dean, Teri, Ellen and I went to Nebraska and visited the Omaha Zoo (my favorite zoo), and the Lauritzen Gardens. The gardens was Teri's favorite part. Her least favorite was the snakes. She says that she got the sweats whenever she was around snakes. They don't seem to bother me. Dean's favorite part was the desert dome at the Zoo, which I didn't go to, because I wasn't in the mood to be hot and see desert animals (having grown up in Arizona, I am constantly underwhelmed).

Normally my favorite part is the rainforest at the zoo (they have a huge rainforest), but this time, I think I appreciated the Creatures of the Night exhibit with the albino alligator and the new butterfly pavilion. Oh, and I liked the bears too (I always like the bears!)

The penguins are always neat to see. I took a little video of it. It was SOOO crowded in that little room! It was sometimes hard to look over everyone's head, and of course, little kids are screaming and pushing everyone trying to get closer.

There's a new exhibit at the Lauritzen Garden that has a really neat miniature city with railway trains running through it. They have even taken care to carefully manicure the plants so that they stay the appropriate miniature size to fit into the exhibit. Pretty neat.

Normally the Victorian Garden is my favorite part of the garden, but this year, it wasn't in very good shape. The plants were all spent spring tulips with thousands of pansies to distract you from the fact that there isn't anything else there. I was a bit disappointed with that. But the woodland shade garden, with all the waterfalls and shady plants like hostas, azaleas, and others was really neat.

We stayed 2 nights at a lodge, which had excellent accommodations for the $89/night charge. Although Teri's bed was too soft (she has to have a very firm mattress). They had a free buffet breakfast (with the whole works of eggs, hash browns, sausage, bacon, cereal, danishes etc.) that was very tasty. I so wish I had a maid that could make me breakfast every morning (my favorite meal of the day).

Here's a slideshow of all the pictures I took at the Zoo.



Omaha Zoo, May 2008

And another slideshow of the Lauritzen Garden.



Lauritzen Garden, Omaha