This weekend LA, the Wife's friend, who
we met with in New York, dropped by for a couple days. These days were filled with walking around Omaha seeing the sights through new eyes.
LA arrived early Friday evening and we jumped in the car and headed to the Old Market area of downtown Omaha. The first thing on our itinerary was a visit to the OM Center to participate in the Chenrezig Empowerment on Compassion. This Buddhist ritual is a cleansing and blessing of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion. It was a little long for my taste but it was interesting and unique. After the ceremony we admired the beginnings of the sand mandala the Buddhist monks (who performed the ceremony) were creating.
I added a couple photos to my
2013-2015 Tibetan Mandala Google Photos album.
After the ceremony we had a late dinner at the Jackson Street Tavern which turned out to be very yummy. I'll have to take Mom there sometime.
After dinner we walked it off, making our way to the riverfront. The Wife and I rarely go out at night and this walk reminded me of what we missed. The skyline lit up with the Woodman of the World tower lit in 911 red, white, and blue. Bracketing the First National Bank building, apparently coincidentally, were two vertical spotlights that reminded me of the beams of light in New York that represent the Twin Towers.
We reached the Heartland of America park and admired the changing color of the fountain in the center of the pond. I'd seen it during the day but at night it is even more impactful.
We passed the drunk guy muttering to himself and walked along the Union walk to Lewis and Clark Landing. The Pedestrian Bridge was all lit up as well, reflecting in the Muddy Mo below.
We naturally walked on the bridge. In the lights you could see spider webbing attached to the support cables, blowing in the breeze. The fencing along the railing had teeny tiny spider webs in each square with even tinier spiders at their centers.
After the pedestrian bridge we walked over to the Centurylink Center and admired the statues performing in front. The statues were all lit up.
That was enough for the first night. We'd been downtown for almost five hours and all the walking wore the Wife and I out. LA seemed to have unending energy. We drove home and made it to bed just after midnight.
On Saturday we had breakfast at the Leavenworth Cafe before heading back downtown. I parked near the slides and LA and the Wife took a few
turns down the slide.
From there we went over to the start of the frontier sculpture. The sculpture starts with a
wagon train representing the settlers of the west. The sculpture then extends a couple blocks with scared bison who in turn, scare a flock of geese.
We wound our way back and forth around downtown passing examples of Omaha architecture, memorials, and public art.
Not sure how far we walked but it was quite a bit. By one o'clock I was tired. I hadn't slept very long the night before and my fall allergies were kicking in with a vengeance. We got back home so the Wife could watch her football and so LA could do some work that he needed to catch up on. I took a nap.
Later that afternoon The Wife and LA went to the inter-tribal Powwow at Fort Omaha. I would have liked to go but my allergies were just sapping my energy and I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much as I would have wanted.
Saturday evening was steak and chicken of the grill, a fire in the chiminea (burning the remains of our fallen crab apple tree), and chocolate cake and ice cream for dessert.
LA got up early to take pictures of the sunrise off our deck. The weather this weekend had been perfect - almost Fall like. It had been fun seeing Omaha through a fresh set of eyes. LA left this morning heading back east. It took most of the day for the Wife and I to recover from the wonderful time we had.