monkeymom's Diaryland Diary
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Lost world.
We're back from the quick trip to Nebraska, and I'm so glad to be home!
It takes 7 hours to get from our house to Omaha, and most of it is just straight across Iowa on I-80. It was very pretty and green and hilly, and it looked like a motorcycle convention along the highway! I really thought there must be some big motorcycle rally in Nebraska because we saw so many.
We didn't get lost until we were almost to Omaha, and then it was minor and we got turned around the right way fairly quickly. Well, Rachel says it wasn't quite like that - there was a great deal of screaming and bad language and slamming the atlas on the dashboard. (When we got home Rich wondered how the cover came off of the atlas, and I shrugged and said I didn't know.)
So we finally got to Shirley and Dwight's house, where Grandma is staying this summer. They have a nice house; full of *stuff* and every piece has a story. Unfortunately, every story had to be told. It had been a long day, and I hadn't had enough sleep because we got lost coming home from Chicago the night before so it took 4 hours to make the two-hour trip, and then I couldn't go to sleep until about 2 a.m., and woke up at 7, eager to get on the road, so I was way too tired to listen to everything they all had to say. I just kept nodding and smiling and looking interested.
Our motel room was really tiny and smelled like many cigarettes, but it was so QUIET! And there weren't thousands of objects on the walls and every flat surface, each with a story behind it. I was so happy.
In the morning we watched Spanish-language television while we packed, and Rachel translated for us. Then we went back to the house of a thousand tchotchkes and picked up Grandma to go to see the Winter Quarters temple and the visitors center.
Because of my unfortunate tendency to get lost in a strange place, I thought that I would be clever and get a map from the motel so that we could find our way around town easily. Uh huh. Well, after we drove around trying to find our destination for an hour, with Grandma narrating the scenery while I tried to direct Rachel to the spot marked on the map, I was about to have a nervous breakdown.
We dropped Grandma and Kim off at the doorway to Pier One Imports because we kept passing it to the accompaniment of Grandma's narration, "There's Pier One again, they have the nicest things!" and I just had to get her out of the car because I couldn't THINK!
We drove down the street and parked in a mall parking lot to look at the map. "You know what? I think this map is just WRONG!" So we decided to take Grandma to the mall instead because you know how she loves to just walk around and look at shiny things, and then we would have lunch at the Thai restaurant right there on the same block and be done with it.
As we pulled back out onto the street we could see Grandma and Kim standing in the doorway of the Pier One shop. Haha, it wasn't even open yet! It was barely 10 a.m. and the doors were being unlocked as we pulled up. So we all went in and looked around and smelled the candles and fondled the shiny things and Rachel bought a gift for her friend's wedding shower next week.
Then we went to the Barnes & Noble in the mall and we all bought magazines - two herb mags for Grandma, a knitting magazine for me, Nintendo Power for Kim, who claims her subscription has run out, and a copy of Barbie Bazaar because it was wierd and interesting and when I'm done with it I'm going to send it to Diana.
After a very good, very spicy Thai lunch, we took Grandma back to the house and loaded the harp back into the van and said goodbye. Whew!
As we left the city of Omaha, we followed the signs that direct tourists to the Mormon Trail Center and found the temple and visitors center - miles away from where the motel map claimed they were! The bastards. The tiny little temple is beautiful, and it was so peaceful on the grounds, that it was a relief just to sit there in the car. We went to the visitors center and took the (surprisingly interesting) tour with the much-too-perky sister missionary.
Part of the tour was a look at the things that would be found in the general store in the town of Cainsville (I think), and I was at the back of the group due to my lack of enthusiasm for sightseeing and tours, but there was something there that caught my eye. Everyone moved on to the next exhibit, but I stepped closer to the counter where there was a basket to see if it was what I thought - knitting needles! There was a basket of very thin metal double pointed needles. They were sock needles! You know those people had to have been wearing out their socks on the long walk across the plains, and they needed lots of socks. I'm sure there were women, as well as children and men, who were knitting socks (and mittens) as they walked.
Then we headed for home, with our coverless atlas in hand.
12:03 a.m. - 2003-08-04
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