The Cat’s Out of the Bag!*

Picture by MAYNARD PAUL Lovely picture, isn’t it?  Where could that be?  It’s so pretty there…boy…I wish I could live there…. So…those who follow me on Facebook or Twitter already know this, and if you aren’t on either of those websites, you could probably just glance to the right on this blog and see the … Read more

Nebraska Discoveries 13: Historic Fort Crook & SAC Chapel, Offutt AFB

Today I’m sharing some of the history on Offutt AFB.  Unfortunately, everyone can’t just get onto Offutt.  You need to have a military ID card to get onto the base freely, or make a friend with a military member who can sign you in as a guest.

As mentioned before, I started using this software to track my runs. The software doesn’t seem very stable on my iPhone (probably because I downloaded the free version and they want my money before it works the way I want it to…). So this isn’t the most accurate thing out there, but it’s fun to give it a go.

So here’s a map of the most recent run I performed:

If you choose “view full” in the lower left, then select the satellite map (or Hybrid), you can see that I’m running the perimeter of a large field. This is the parade field of what was formerly Fort Crook, which was the original military installation that is now the home of Offutt AFB. Fort Crook was established in 1888, and was completed in 1894.  Today, many of the buildings surrounding the parade field are from their original mid-1890s construction, including the buildings of “General’s Row” which are seen in the background here from the late 1890s:

And here are the same houses today, the same ones as on the left side of the above photo:

Nebraska Discoveries 12: Lauritzen Gardens…Omaha’s Botanical Center

Since I won’t be in the Omaha area forever, I realized recently that my time is running out for visiting the many attractions in the area.  Thanks to my boys’ field trips, Cub Scouting and birthday party invitations, they’ve already been to several area attractions.  But I’ve set a new goal for myself and the family: to visit every attraction on the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau’s “Pin Map”.

You probably can’t see it that well, but just click on the “Pin Map” link above and you can see the original PDF.   It’s called the “Pin Map” because in front of each of these attractions is an enormous mock up of a blue-tipped pin.  I’ll get a picture of one as soon as I can…
So…my goal is to visit each of the 15 attractions on the “Pin Map” before I leave the area.  So far, I’ve covered 7 of the 15 attractions (numbers 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13)…and we have this summer to make our way through the rest.  Maybe I’ll blog about these “pins” as we visit them…I hope to, but I won’t make any guarantees.
Today I’ll share with you my first visit to #8 on the list: Lauritzen Gardens.
Timmy’s preschool class took a trip here on Monday.  I can’t believe I’ve lived here nearly 2 years and hadn’t been here till this week!  I guess it goes with living in a house full of boys, right?
This is a beautiful place, full of pretty flowers (of course) but I also really enjoyed the gardens “repurposing” sconces, corbels and other ornamentals from throughout Omaha…the pieces were rescued and help decorate the gardens.  The kids really enjoyed the flowers but the weather wasn’t very good and the walking was pretty tough on that group of 4 and 5 year olds.
So here are some pictures of the lovely visit.  I won’t include everything, just some of the more summary-type pics.  I STILL can’t believe I left our camera sitting on the counter as we headed out the door…so these pictures are with my iPhone camera.

This piece was repurposed from a downtown Omaha building:

Nebraska Discoveries 9**: Skiing at Mount Crescent, Iowa

**Yes, I know this is in Iowa, but it’s easily something that someone in Nebraska could do. Today the family took a day trip to Mount Crescent Ski Area in Crescent, Iowa. Dave and I can now proudly add this small mountain to our “I didn’t realize there was skiing there!” locations that includes Mad … Read more

Walt Disney World!!!!

From 2009 12 19 WDW Vacation Day 2 I didn’t make a big deal out of this beforehand, but for Christmas the Vollmers took a vacation to Walt Disney World! We were there from December 18-23rd and the flight home on the 24th was pretty scary. Dallas-Fort Worth Airport cancelled the next flights to Omaha … Read more

How John Deere Brought My Sons Closer Together….

I’ve quite a queue of potential blog posts in my mind…mainly things that have been happening in our lives, and every once in a while something happens about which I think “That would be a fun/funny/silly/insightful blog post.” I think I’ll be improving in the next week or so, as the boys’ soccer seasons wrap … Read more

Friday Night Flights

Neal: What’s the flight situation?Del: Simple. There’s no way on earth we’re going to get out of here tonight. We’d have more luck playing pickup sticks with our butt-cheeks than we will getting a flight out of here before daybreak.Neal: I guess we’ll find out soon enough.Del: Yeah, but by the time the airline cancels … Read more

Vollmer Vacation Ventures

We are now back in Nebraska. Many of you know this already, if you’ve been following Dave or me on Facebook, Twitter or our family’s homepage. We made a nuisance of ourselves advertising every point of our trip to the world, much to the delight of potential thieves, as someone pointed out to me during … Read more

Our Rainy Day in NYC!

Enjoy our pictures/captions from our rainy day in NYC! We were hoping to see a Yankees game on this day, and the original plan was to take the train into NYC, get on a subway to the ballpark and see the game, but the rain was so bad we knew it would be rained out! … Read more