Day 1: Omaha, NE

Day one of our ‘we need a vacation-road trip-honeymoon.’

We left our house a little after noon, bound for Union, NE. One of the neighbor boys from growing up lives there, working as a recruiter for the Navy. Adam started driving. I eventually I started up the laptop, but it didn’t start up. So, when we stopped for gas in Des Moines, IA, we switched drivers, and it didn’t take Adam long to fix the computer.

We had Brent’s address in our GPS, but apparently it doesn’t come up right in them. So we were on the other side of the freeway from his place. And of course, when you’re in the country, in the middle of nowhere, and lost, you never have cell phone service (seriously, what did we do before we had these handy little devices?!). We drove back down the road, because we knew we weren’t in the right place, and found service. I called Brent, and we were supposed to go right when the GPS told us to go left. So, we headed back into “town” (don’t blink), where most of the buildings looked boarded up and closed. Brent told us later that only four places (of the maybe fifteen buildings) were still open (of course, one of them was a bar, because what town isn’t complete without a bar?) There also used to be a hotel, the little tiny building amused me as we passed it leaving the next day.

When we got to Brent’s he showed us around his farmhouse that he is renting. It’s a very nice place, old, but nice. We met his new black lab puppy, Cash (named after Johnny Cash). Then Brent started cooking us an excellent dinner: steak, baked potatoes, corn on the cob, and garlic bread. I was impressed with his cooking, and his Fab Grill (It looks like a car engine)! We ate dinner, and then watched “Hot Tub Time Machine,” which Adam and I had just seen last weekend: good movie, cheap budget. We could hear the crickets outside while we watched, though they didn’t sound the same as they do in Minnesota.

When Brent went outside for a smoke at one point, we joined him. There were fireflies everywhere! They would fly right above your head, and all over by the field. Brent said that they were greenish-yellow here, but white back in Minnesota. I hadn’t ever noticed their color before, but I guess if they’re white back home, there’s not much color to notice.

It was getting late (I had been up since Adam left for work at 2:30am, and hadn’t taken a nap like he had). So we said our goodbyes to Brent (in case we didn’t see him in the morning), and went to bed. Brent had a nice air mattress for us to sleep on in the room across the hall from his room.

The next morning, we got up right as Brent was leaving, and said goodbye again. Then we showered and got ready for the day. And got on the road bound for Denver.