Cycling Trips
- U.S.
East Coast
- Maine to
PA
- The Edge of
N.J.
- Fahrradtour
Canada
- Skiing
Whistler Mtn.
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Wilderness
Lakes
Europe +
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Heidelberg
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In Germany
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Adventure in
Milan
- A Week In
Israel
New Zealand
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Vistas
U.S.
North
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U.S. West
- Miserable
Hawaii
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Redwoods
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Albuquerque
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Tahoe
Even More
-
Recent
Travels
- My
Quest For All
50
States
- About
Bob
Excitement in Omaha? There's more to this Nebraska city than you think, including parks, galleries, casinos, baseball--and a real jungle.
Omaha,
Neb.--Wiping the sweat from my brow, I ducked cautiously
under the low-hanging palm fronds and stepped across the
stream. Discovering a winding dirt trail on the other side,
I followed it through the forest to the base of a cliff,
where a narrow stone stairway coaxed me upward, through a
cleft in the rocks, to an overlook. The view was
spectacular.
A 50-foot waterfall cascaded majestically down the rocks before me, splashing into a deep pool below. In the dense rain forest beyond, a monkey swung gracefully through the branches of a massive tree. Below it, surfacing in a deep portion of the stream, was a pygmy hippo.
A flash of bright yellow swooped past my head, and I looked in time to see a parrot fly by, disappearing behind a banana plant, its green fruit hanging just out of my reach. All around me the strange squawking and hooting of jungle creatures reminded me that I was in a totally alien environment, far from home.
I was in Omaha, Neb.
Now,
Omaha had never struck me as being very tropical. And
monkeys were seldom my first thought when Nebraska came up
in conversation. But when I stood atop the rocks in the Lied
Jungle, a 1.5-acre exhibit in Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, I
honestly believed I was in the heart of a tropical rain
forest. So cleverly were the enclosures concealed that I
felt the resident crocodiles, pythons and leopards were
about to chase me through the lush bamboo and mango groves.
The exhibit was just one of the many surprises I encountered
on a recent trip to Omaha.
I hadn't previously considered Omaha to be much of a travel destination--in fact I hadn't considered Omaha much at all. As the chief city in a state that allows itself to be called The Cornhusker State, I didn't see much entertainment potential there.
But while the rest of the country has been busy smirking at Omaha ("They probably tip cows for fun on a Saturday night, heh heh."), the city has been quietly building itself into both a pleasant place to live and an enjoyable place to visit. With a minor league baseball stadium, several theaters, a fantastic zoo, casinos and a recently expanded art museum--not to mention those famous Omaha steaks--Omaha makes a perfect stop for anyone taking a summer cross-country road trip.
And baseball fanatics making a pilgrimage to the annual College World Series in June should consider adding time to their schedules to check out the sights.
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The heart of Omaha: Gene Leahy Mall. |
On a recent business trip to the town, I managed to fill my leisure time with a host of activities. After checking into the Radisson Redick Tower, I took an exploratory walk to the beautiful Gene Leahy Mall, a waterside park stretching for five blocks through the heart of the city. Paved walking trails bordered a winding waterway, leading past gardens, sculpture, waterfalls and an amphitheater where, I was told, summer concerts were held. |
The Mall connected with Heartland of America Park, a fairly new 31-acre park near the Missouri River. Though all was serene on my visit, the stillness of the lake is broken starting each May by a computerized fountain that shoots a jet of water an amazing 300 feet into the sky. It is programmed to provide a variety of spray patterns and is illuminated with colorful lights at night. A 35-foot excursion boat ferries curious passengers in for a closer look.
About 10 miles out of the city lies one of Omaha's most well-known landmarks: Boys Town, otherwise known as Father Flanagan's Boys (and Girls) Home. I chose this as my next stop. Immortalized in the 1938 Spencer Tracy/Mickey Rooney classic, Boys Town is now a national historic landmark. Its proud history of taking in and educating destitute children is chronicled in a compelling free museum, packed with artifacts from Boys Town's 75-year history.
"There are no bad boys," Fr. Flanagan once said, and then set out to prove it by removing young men from troubled environments and giving them love, education and role models instead. Push-button recordings in the museum allow some of the boys to tell their own stories. Photos and news clippings trace the institution's beginnings and its growth through the decades. Articles describing the boys' battle to save their crops during the 1933 drought and their subsequent failure still bring a tear.
A display detailing the making of the film Boys Town includes Spencer Tracy's actual Academy Award with an inscribed plaque dedicating it to Fr. Flanagan. The boys, said the lady at the front desk, used to rub the statue for luck whenever one of their misdeeds earned them a trip into Fr. Flanagan's office. The priest's octagonal burial chamber, encircled by stained glass windows, lies in the nearby Dowd Memorial Chapel. (And yes, by the way, Boys Town does admit girls these days.)
I was pleased to discover that one of the world's largest permanent displays of Currier and Ives prints is housed in Omaha--in ConAgra's headquarters building. Boasting more than 500 lithographs, the free exhibit is open to the public on the first and third Sundays of each month from 2 to 4 p.m. and is well worth a look. The nostalgic 19th-century prints, best known from their reproductions on Christmas cards, run the gauntlet from idyllic winter scenes to trains and clipper ships. Other scenes include sporting events, famous disasters and portraits of presidents. I spent a nostalgic hour walking the halls, transporting myself back to an earlier era.
Eager to try one of Omaha's famous steaks, I went out to dinner at Cascio's Steak House with two of my Omaha acquaintances, Patricia Seier and Tom Owens, enjoying a thick T-bone, cooked to juicy perfection. Then the three of us headed to the Old Market, once Omaha's wholesale fruit and vegetable center, now one of its prime hangouts. Its old warehouses are now bursting with boutiques, art galleries, pubs, restaurants and book stores.
We strolled the cobblestone streets, stopping into shops like It Flies, featuring a fantasyland of kites and windsocks, and galleries like Art Plus, awash in art prints, ranging from Salvador Dali works to Terry Redlin's rustic sunset paintings. Billy Froggs Bar & Grill, a local favorite, beckoned us inside for a look at its hodge-podge decor.
We
ducked into a quaint indoor passageway (aptly called "The
Passageway") lined with restaurants and galleries. Signs for
the various establishments within sprouted from the ancient
brick walls of the main corridor, while plants perched on
overhead window ledges dropped leafy tendrils down toward
the brick floor. With fountains and sculptures hidden in
dark alcoves, restaurant tables overflowing out into the
central passage and the delicious smell of food saturating
the air, the place had the look and feel of a narrow alley
in the Latin Quarter of Paris.
Outside rain had begun to fall. We ducked into Ted & Walley's Ice Cream for some desert, then hurried off to the car, intent on finding an indoor activity. We decided to while away a few hours at one of the casino boats that have drifted into the Omaha area in recent years. To do so we had to cross the Missouri River to Council Bluffs, Iowa. We strolled up the gangplank of the Ameristar Casino into a glittering world of neon lights, free-flowing money and scantily clad waitresses in mesh stockings. Smoke filled the air and slot machines lined the walls, the frequent jangle of falling tokens testifying to their user-friendliness.
Patricia dropped some money into a machine and we took turns pulling the lever. On my second pull I won $40. I was hooked. I spent the next half hour trying to return this money to the casino by dropping tokens into various machines. We still ended up $10 ahead.
In the morning I headed to the Joslyn Art Museum with another of my acquaintances, Rich Grondek, to take advantage of the free Saturday morning admission. In late 1994 the museum completed a $16 million addition to its original art deco structure, greatly expanding its already vast scope. And I'm not talking unknown Omaha artists either. Big names like Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Thomas Hart Benton and El Greco mingle with works by George Catlin depicting the American West.
The museum's permanent collection features European works dating from the late Middle Ages through the 19th century. The American collection has a special emphasis on 19th century landscape. The museum's spacious interior lends a majesty to these works, enhancing the drama in John Gutzon Borglum's "Staging in California," which depicts horses pulling a stage coach along a precarious ledge. William Adolphe Bouguerea's 1886 "Return of Spring" is breathtakingly lifelike. It's almost impossible to believe that its central figure, a woman surrounded by floating cherubs, is not alive and ready to step into the room.
After a few hours in the Joslyn, Rich took me past the popular Omaha Childrens' Museum, with its myriad hands-on exhibits, to the ornate Rose Childrens' Theater, gargoyles staring down from its outer walls. The historic building is the site of numerous theatrical productions geared toward the younger crowd.
The Henry Doorly Zoo was next on our agenda. We parked down the street and walked past Rosenblatt Stadium, home of the Omaha Royals, the farm team for the Kansas City Royals. Fans were lining up for tickets to an afternoon game, for which general
admission seats ran a mere $3.50. It's here each June that some 150,000 baseball fans gather to cheer college teams from around the country as they compete in the College World Series, a major Omaha event since 1950.
The
zoo was a surprise. I hadn't previously harbored any
particular fascination with zoos, but Omaha's version
captured my attention. In addition to sporting a four-acre
enclosed aviary and North America's largest cat
complex--featuring a rare white tiger--the zoo boasted a
first-rate aquarium and the $15 million Lied Jungle,
reportedly the largest indoor rain forest in the world. As
if this weren't enough, an IMAX theater is scheduled to open
in the spring of 1997.
We strolled through the Kingdoms of the Seas aquarium, passing through a 70-foot glass tunnel that bisected a shark tank. Scores of the fierce predators circled us, staring menacingly through the glass with their dark, lifeless eyes. Surrounding them, their flat bodies undulating slowly, were a dozen or so large rays. Hundreds of smaller fish, like angelfish and barracudas, darted amongst the colorful coral.
After getting a good dose of the sea--an irony considering we were as far from an ocean as we could possibly get in the U.S.--we headed to the jungle, another Midwest rarity. Starting on the upper level, we strolled through the treetops along wooden walkways, peering down through tropical vines and leaves into the seamlessly blended Asian, African and South American rain forests recreated below.
More than 90 species of wildlife inhabit this amazing man-made world, as well as more than 1,000 species of vegetation. Gibbons, chimpanzees and spider monkeys share the treetops with howler monkeys and colbus monkeys, their black-and-white manes flowing.
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Our route crossed a swaying suspension bridge, then passed into a dark cave where nocturnal creatures like bats resided behind nearly invisible glass walls. Back outside, I passed under a thick tree branch and looked up to see a python curled up inside a hollow indentation. My momentary panic was quelled when I realized that it, too, was behind glass. |
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Descending to the forest floor, we followed winding dirt trails around the trunks of massive trees to the base of a crashing waterfall. The jungle felt real down to the tiniest detail: the moss-covered rocks, the fragile mushrooms sprouting from the bark of trees, the tiny fish swimming in the ponds. The place had taken on a life of its own. Things were living here now that were not in the original plans. Somehow that made it even more fascinating.
It was the same with Omaha itself. Cornhusking may have been its claim to fame at one time, but today's Omaha has chosen a new direction, moving away from the traditional--the expected.
And, likewise, that has made it all the more compelling.
the Newark Star Ledger and the Boston Globe. (Not bad, eh?)