Omaha

First we went to Council Bluffs.  It’s on the Iowa side of the Missouri River.  It has a nice view of Omaha, the airport and the Missouri River.  They’d like you to think it was the meeting spot of Lewis and Clark and the Oto Indians, but that actually happened across the river at Council Bluff, NE (no “s”).  Our presenter was an avid Lewis and Clark history buff who meets monthly with other buffs, just to study everything Lewis and Clark.

 

We went down to the river and had lunch.  There’s not much recreation on the river because it’s so muddy and shallow and filled with lots of things to snag a boat.

Then we drove into Omaha and visited Boys Town.  I didn’t see the connection with Lewis and Clark, but it was a welcome diversion from the immersion.  They do some good things here, taking in wayward youth and giving them another chance at a better start.  They take both boys and girls now.  Many come from the justice system plus other neglected, unfortunate kids with bad family situations.  They try to provide them with a pseudo family situation by housing them with a married couple in a house with a dozen other youth.  They provide food, clothing, schooling, sports, choice of religion, and more.

Apparently the movie Boys Town, with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney was overseen by Father Flanagan to insure it was accurate.  The Father was an excellent fund raiser and promoter and as a result, Boys Town has continued to grow and expand.  They have 9 outposts, 3 of which are in Florida.  I was surprised by that.  When I asked the tour guide why Florida, she said there should be 3 in every state.

We toured the house built for Father Flanagan…

… and the Catholic church, even though it’s not funded by any church.

The boys had some interesting projects, and one of them was creating the world’s biggest ball of stamps.

And since that wasn’t enough entertainment for one day, we went to the Melodrama after dinner.  I’ve never seen anything like this.  They put on a play and encourage you to cheer on the hero and boo the villain.  And they even go beyond that and throw popcorn at the villain and folded up dollar bills at the actors.  The actors sometimes hide picking up the bills, sometimes they fight over them, sometimes they work it into the script.  It was pretty funny.  It was even more funny the next night when we had our drivers meeting and Robb threw one at Wagonmaster Mark and Kim, his wife, dived past him and grabbed it for herself.

When the play ended, the severe thunderstorms hit and we were drenching trying to get to our cars and RVs.  They told us that just 10 miles away, they got 3 inches of hail in an hour.  We were lucky.