I got up around 8 and drove the hour drive to Omaha. The drive was uneventful and I mostly just enjoyed the scenery on my way. I thought it was funny, there were a lot of cars with make-shift snow plows on them that could be raised or lowered. Kinda like Texas, except here it is lifted trucks.
The next place on my itinerary was Lauritzen Gardens. I looked at their website before coming and it said they had seasonal displays. So at least I would be able to see something besides snow. I did have to pay $10 to get in, so it wasn’t free. I walked outside and all I saw was snow. I expected them to have a winter garden. I wouldn’t know since I’m from the south, but surely there are some kind of plants that grow in the winter?
By this time I didn’t have enough time to go to a steak house so I decided to get one at the airport. I saw it when I landed. So I turned in my rental and went to the steak place. I found out that they don’t actually cook the steak. They are there so you can order a piece of raw steak to be delivered to your house. That was a bummer. So I went through Security, and had a pizza while I waited for my plan. After we finally boarded the airplane, we had to wait for them to spray it down. I didn’t know this, but if you at a place with ice they have to spray the plane with a liquid to get the ice off and ensure it doesn’t freeze while it’s in the air. It makes sense; a big block of ice falling from the sky could do a lot of damage to buildings and people below. I eventually made it back to Mom’s at about 8:30 p.m.
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Last week, they asked for volunteers to do an inventory observation in Lincoln Nebraska on Thursday. I was just planning on driving back to Dallas that day and then spend the rest of my vacation relaxing at my place, so I volunteered. I haven’t been to Nebraska before, so it marks another state off my list. I woke up at 4 a.m., so I could leave Mom’s house by 5 a.m., then make it to the airport at 6 a.m., to catch my plane that left at 8 a.m. I pretty much followed my timeline, give or take 10 minutes. By 8 a.m., I had boarded my flight to DFW. At the DFW airport I had a 2 hour layover so I ate some breakfast/lunch. Then I boarded my flight and landed in Omaha, Nebraska at 1 p.m. Then I took a shuttle to the rental car place and got a rental car. Finally I was on the road to Lincoln, which is a 1 hour drive from Omaha. I had budgeted 2 hours to get my rental car and drive to Lincoln, but it only took an hour and half. Since I was early, I decided to go to the State Capitol first. It took my some circling, but I finally found a parking spot, which I sadly had to pay for. Then I hurried into the Capitol to make it in time for the tour which started every hour on the hour. I made it just as the guy was starting and joined the small group.
Nebraska paid about $10 million dollars for the building in the 20s and 30s. They are one of the few states that did not borrow money for their State Capitol, but paid it all. They did this by paying it out in $1 million increments over 10 years. The problem with this was that the last million was paid at the start of the Great Depression. Luckily, the building was completed, and the artwork on the floors and ceilings were complete. The only thing left to complete was the artwork on the walls. Nebraska decided just to wait until they had money. So the artwork on the walls were not completed until the 50s, after the state had recovered from the Great Depression.
The first one we discussed was The Blizzard of 1888, which was a huge blizzard that came unexpectedly down on Nebraska. Families dropped their children off at school, and then the blizzard came without warning, trapping people where they were. This mural tells one of the stories. There was a small one-room schoolhouse, and the roof was blown off during the blizzard. The teacher tied a rope around her waist and each of the 13 childrens’ waists and they walked a ½ mile through the blizzard to a nearby farmhouse for safety. Miraculously, all of them survived. This mural tells of this miracle.
On each side of the Rotunda, there are 2 doors, one to the East Chamber and one to the West Chamber. In the beginning, Nebraska had a House of Representatives and a Senate, similar to most states. Then, a famous Nebraskan named George Norris campaigned across Nebraska on a unicameral. Instead of having 2 separate bodies, there is one. This makes sense since they are all elected be the same people. It is also supposed to be more efficient because there will be less debating and it would save the taxpayers money. And so the unicameral was born in Nebraska. All of their representatives are called State Senators. Other states tried to copy this idea, but they did not succeed, in part because they didn’t have a George Norris campaigning for the idea. We first walked over the East Chamber, which is no longer used for everyday meetings since the unicameral was formed. Now it is only used for special occasions. We were not able to go inside, so we only looked at the doors, which had their own symbolisms. The doors tell of Native American culture and life. There is of course the cross, representing Christianity and the tree of life, but the ends of the cross show corn, which was the Native American’s main agricultural group and is still important in the Cornhusker State (Nebraska’s nickname). On the sides of the door is an Indian man standing on an otter, which is a symbol of medicine. And on the other side is an Indian woman standing on a turtle, which is symbol of fertility.
After that I went back outside to take some pictures of the outside of the Capitol. I was in a hurry on the way in so I didn’t have time. I also went to see the Governor’s Mansion which is on one of the corners of the Capitol. There are not currently offering tours, so I just took a quick picture and moved on.
The Sunken Gardens was my last stop, so I ran to my hotel to check in and drop off my things before my inventory observation. Then I went to CVS to get a spiral notebook (which they didn’t have) and to Freddie’s for some dinner. I didn’t know how long my inventory observation was going to take, so I wanted to be prepared. Usually inventory observations take 2-4 hours. This one took 30 minutes. I was shocked! Of course, I usually observe warehouses where the entire inventory is in 3 different places at opposite sides of the warehouse. This inventory observation was in a storefront and everything was grouped together. They also don’t keep large quantities of inventory since they have multiple storefronts, if they run out they just go a couple of miles to the next location and get the inventory item they need. Since we finished early, I went back to the hotel and finished my documentation and went to bed to prepare for tomorrow.
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June 2022
AuthorThese are details from my adventures around the world. |