Gretna to North Platte

We are unable to stay longer as our site has been booked out, so we move on to North Platte.



Lots of harvesting at this time of year and the machinery is huge.

A fairly quiet drive through farm land to North Platte arriving around 3pm.

At North Platte we visited the Golden Spike Tower, which is the Union Pacific's Bailey Yard - the largest rail yard in the world, where 10,000 cars are handled each day on 2,850 acres stretching 8 miles.

Daryl getting a bird's eye view from the 7th floor of the tower, watching the trains 'hump' - letting two or three roll down by themselves.

As we head back to town we spot this old theatre and then pick up supplies before heading back to camp to make dinner and plan the next move.  The camp is nearly empty compared to a few months back when we passed through heading East and the tree frogs have gone.

Omaha

Today we headed into Omaha to have a look around not knowing exactly what to expect.


First stop was the Durham Museum - an old Union Pacific Railway Station, which had some neat displays on Omaha history.

They also still operate the Soda Fountain - of course we had to get a root bear float!

What a line up!   A special exhibition of prohibition.

Next we hit the Old Market District.

There are many second hand stores, this one had everything you could think of and more.

So much stuff.....and a cafe.........and all sorts of crap!

This turned out to be a very interesting place - Daryl picked up some goodies................... over the next few second hand shops.

We found the River Walk and followed this around over bridges and down past statutes to the fountains. 





The bucket empties every couple of minutes.....watch out.

Mini waterfalls with city in backdrop.




The geese were huge and they even had a white swan.

Water fountain downtown - a lovely walk and they had gondolas to take rides in if you wanted.

By the time we walk back to the Old Market District it is about 6pm and we decide to go to Plank Restaurant, which has happy hour until 6.30pm.  A great meal at a reasonable price, great service and we really enjoyed our dinner before heading back to camp.

Some of the sights while having dinner, the horse and cart which seems to be in every city around America and a novel way to do a pub crawl.  Don't know how much peddling would be going on after a few drinks!



Even the police are on horses.......

Totally enjoyed Omaha and had we been able to stay longer at our camp, we would have as we are sure there is much more to see and enjoy.

Des Moines to Gretna - Omaha, NB

Moving along, we debate which way to head home....

In the end we go to Gretna near Omaha as we had been told Omaha was nice but others were not so convincing.


We go to the KOA and set up, then decide to stay another day as it is too late to go into Omaha.

Back in Nebraska............................


Anyhow, someone was booked in the campsite we had gone into and we ended up having to move sites to a nice but expensive site.  A bit of mucking around but we got set up again and plan to go to Omaha tomorrow.

Our camp site for two nights......and the weather played ball so we got to use the outside pergola for breakfast and in the evening.

Davenport to Des Moines

Leaving Davenport we head for Des Moines which we did not get a chance to stop in last time we were in this region.

We head down to the State Capitol as it looked pretty amazing.

 This would have to be one of the more ornate State Capitol, amazing architecture and art work.

As we go up the stairs, a guy coming down says to check out the Library..................

 The Library (below) was amazing, we just looked around in awe silently amazed.

The main dome is gold plated and also very ornate architecture.




Statues and art gardens lead down to the city centre.

We also checked out the Freedom Walk, a WWII memorial - very moving.

Then head down to the city for a look around the place.  Des Moines was very green and clean with lots of construction going on around the city centre.


Lots of covered overhead walk ways - they get real snows here so everything is linked for winter.