Some quick Omaha time before we descend into Lukas Land!

Before the thirty person Lukas clan congregated at Mahoney, we had a few minutes to spin through Omaha and hook up with Luke. Montana and Elijah decided to meet Colton at the zoo on his way from the airport, and they sent me the obligatory photo by the lion sculpture. I compare it below to the same picture they took when they drove together from Spokane to Nashville in 2014. They said the zoo was fabulous as ever, though that lion sculpture seems to have shrunk a bit.

The second most famous zoo photo would be at the base of this tree, but disappointed to find it blocked off.

After dropping the kids off to rendezvous at the zoo we took a trip through town. Omaha looks great, very strong and vibrant. We walked Josie a bit at the Old Market, about the only part of downtown that felt or looked at all familiar.

We drove past our first house in Keystone. It was super overgrown, esp in the front, but everything else looked about the same. Fence removed, big tree in the back replaced with a smaller tree. The vicinity was never that great even 25 years ago and probably had degraded a bit. The biggest killer was seeing what they did to Lori Kohl’s adorable property across the street, but that happened even before we left Nebraska.

We also checked out Grandma and Grandpa’s old house down the street - the whole circle is still nice and tidy!

Since we were so close we had to stop at our favorite gyro restaurant. As great as ever. Jennie was still there behind the grill! Sketchy neighborhood though.

On our way to Mahoney State Park, of course we swung up to Arlington. This might have been a mistake. SO overgrown you can barely even see the house and you cannot see the barns or orchard. You can’t even see the house until you are past it. Just looked sloppy and uncared for (even though it was mowed, etc.) We had no idea that those trees would get so crazy - I remember thinking our house was much more prairie-like, “9 acres and 6 trees”. Kind of depressing to see it so messy. Plus we are not accustomed to so much corn!

Josie rode with us all day, still a travel trooper. Colton found the very first photo we ever took of Josie, from the day we picked her up in Ellensburg back in August 2014. Then and now.