Monday, June 30, 2008

Between the Storms: Our Trip to Omaha


I was watching the weather updates and the road conditions before we left on our roadtrip to Omaha. Our drive takes us through Iowa, which has been hit hard by rains, tornadoes, and flooding. We mapped out two routes, just in case route "A" was still flooded. But route "B" was flooded, too. Fortunately, by the time we left, route "A" was okay.

Omaha and the surrounding areas has been pounded by Mother Nature during the past month. A tornado hit an Omaha community during the night of June 8th. On June 11th, a tornado hit a Boy Scout camp about 45 minutes from Omaha, killing 4 boys and injuring many more. Rain caused severe, post-Katrina-like flooding of several Iowa cities.

And, two days after we left Omaha, a wall of wind and rain, called "straight-line winds," blowing at 115 mph--hurricane levels--downed hundreds of trees, power lines, and caused severe damage, especially near where we were staying with my Mother. (By the way, my Mother and her home were undamaged.)

But between the storms, we had a good time. Only short bouts of rain appeared while we were there.

Our time in Omaha was so very brief, we could only visit a few of the most important places. First, we enjoyed a fabulous dinner at The French Cafe. I went shopping at the Mall of my Youth: Westroads. I enjoyed grocery shopping at Whole Foods. We took the kids to the best Zoo in the world: the Henry Doorly Zoo. I went with friends to Shakespeare in the Park to see Much Ado about Nothing. We visited the cemeteries where family are buried, especially my Father, placing flowers on every one. We even spent an hour or two, in the rain, looking for my Great-Grandparents' graves.

Most importantly, we visited with family. Some who have never met my daughter, since the last time I visited I was only two months pregnant with her.

We had fun during our whirlwind visit, and we didn't cause any damage.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Vacation!

We're on vacation for a while. But I'll be back. Don't worry, the dog and the cat will be fed! I just hope the garden is okay.

Oh, and someone needs to take care of the tadpoles living in a bucket on the back porch.

And don't let the . . . . . . Oh, forget it! We need to get away for a while.

See ya!

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Thursday Thirteen #91


13 Random Things in Creekistan

1. A brood of cicadas has emerged. These are the loud bugs that emerge every 17 years or so. This isn't the big brood like the one in 2004, but they're still very loud. It sounds like an aerosol can that won't stop spraying, or Star Trek phasers on stun.Info.

2. My neighbor has a pesky bird that pecks at their kitchen window. In order to discourage this, they have set up a cross-dressing Mr. Potatohead in the window. It really works!
3. I hurt my back doing yard work. The yard doesn't seem to care and has just kept growing. But when I'm on muscle relaxers, I don't care very much.

4. My Wii Fit arrived and is a lot of fun. But you can't take it personally. My Wii Fit tells me that I'm obese and unbalanced. I'm hoping it means mentally unbalanced.

5. The Memorial Day parade near Creekistan started at 9am. We weren't even out of bed at that time! Forget it. Who needs to have fire engines throwing candy at you anyway?
6. While we were cleaning off the front porch, Mr. Toad snuck into the house and scared the crap out of my daughter, who was sitting time out. Mr. Toad was promptly let back outside. By the way, Mr. Toad is a toad who lives on our porch and isn't afraid of the dog.

7. We're all done with school, so everyone is home for the summer. No driving to town twice a day. With current gas prices, that's about $8 a day in savings!
8. Speaking of gas, on the Thursday before Memorial Day, I made the decision to wait to fill up the tank. I was shocked that gas was $4 a gallon. Then, on Friday, when I needed to fill up, prices were $4.20 a gallon. It's a conspiracy!
9. I went to a high school graduation party for a nephew. We didn't see him and his friends for a while until we found him and his friends in the basement playing on an Xbox and large-screen flat panel TV that a friend snuck into the basement.

10. As a graduation gift, I took that nephew and two friends to see Rocky Horror Picture Show. They were unsuspecting virgins that had no idea what was about to happen to them. On the way to the midnight showing, they asked me, "So, is this a musical?" Yep! "Is it a movie or a play?" Yep!
11. My husband has gotten addicted to Ancestry.com and has tracked a lot of our relatives into the 1700's. Seems I have both and Lewis and a Clark in my history. And my stubbornness comes from my German and Irish relatives. That's also why I like beer so much.

12. I got my hair done again--the highlights are gone and now I'm all over deep red/brown. I miss the highlights.
13. Storms all day yesterday caused a lot of downed trees, flooding, and power outages in our area. But I noticed that since moving to Creekistan, hearing reports of something happening to an area of town isn't just an area of town, but a person that I know and get worried about.


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