Chicago to Nebraska, then to South Dakota

This morning we woke up really early so that we could drive to the Navy Pier in Chicago for the 9 a.m. architectural boat cruise. It was highly recommended by various people; unfortunately, Chicago's traffic is so bad that we were told to allot 1.5 hours to drive (the 15 miles) downtown during the morning rush hour commute. Actually it wasn't that bad, turned out to be only 45 minutes.

The tour was fabulous; not only did it have cookies and coffee onboard, but the docent knew a lot about each of the buildings. We saw many buildings with characteristics of specific architectural firms (ie: columns, or rounded sides, or art deco style, etc.), and many buildings were designed to be bigger or prettier than those around it. Furthermore, the city was planned with nice pedestrian walkways all along the riverfront, with various restaurants, parks, and new residential condos all located in the heart of town! By the end of the tour, Keith said to Karen, "I wouldn't mind living here!

We quickly left Chicago as we are heading to Omaha, but wasted an hour looking for sunglasses for Keith (he has been driving without sunglasses!). Getting to Omaha requires that we drive through most of the width of Illinois, and all of Iowa, and into Nebraska. We passed tons of cornfields in Illionois and Iowa. Now I know what it is like living in the middle of nowhere. This was really the middle of nowhere--just lots of beautiful farms and corn crops.

We told ourselves that we would try and appreciate something unique about each state. I was looking forward to the pastoral beauty of Iowa and the beauty in simplicity; in the end, I was left seeing that really there was little besides the rolling corn fields. Unfortunately, we also did not have a chance to really get to know the local people.

By the time we arrived in Omaha, it was dark (about 7pm). Our inn, the Cornerstone B&B, is on the national registry of historic buildings. Julie, our innkeeper, was really nice and spent half an hour with us during breakfast explaining that the mansion was originally built for a well-known family by a Chicago architect in the late 1800s. She also explained the growth of Omaha (doubled its population in the last 20 years) and the desire for people to return to Nebraska for the quieter, more traditional way of life.

Living in a historical building turned out to be quite an experience! The room was quite old; the bathroom, for example, only had a claw tub and the shower head hose has to be held by your hand to "shower". All the lights required individual switches, and none of the windows opened. The local area, with a few unoccupied buildings nearby with rusted old cars, made me feel a bit unsafe. However, it really looked a lot more grand during the day, and Julie explained that the area is undergoing a time of revival and reformation (many people are buying the local unoccupied mansions and turning them into B&Bs... if the city allows), and the area is quite safe.

The commercial district of Omaha (Omaha Mutual, etc.) is within 20 blocks of the inn, and looks quite modern. At night, however, this area is completely deserted. Coming from bigger cities, that felt really weird; again, in Nebraska, life is very family oriented. There is no reason to be in the financial district after working hours; our customary expectations from larger cities really do not apply here!

Omaha's old market district is where the original industrial area used to be. The buildings were all purchased after the industry collapsed, and is now a collection of restaurants, shops, etc. It is now the center of nightlife in Omaha. We had dinner here the night before, and noticed everyone was very tall (more than 6 ft!)... Keith finally had his Omaha steak. It was different -- the meat had a very favorful taste, almost gamey in nature compared to typical beef. I'm not sure it was all that it's cracked up to be... especially the entire "grain-fed" marketing about the beef. After all, it seems like around here all the cows are either grain or corn fed (most of the agricultural fields are used to feed the livestock!).

So why did Keith cross the road? Because the next day we drove from Omaha to South Dakota, and passed by fields and fields of sunflowers! Karen watched Keith as he ran across both directions of Interstate 90 to get this picture of the sunflower fields.

While Iowa was about endless corn fields, we heard that South Dakota is more about cows and wheat. We did continue to see many fields of corn, but also many ranches of black cows. The land was much more flat than Iowa. Also, just like our last road trip, we took a rock in the windshield which left us a nice 10" long crack.

After 460 miles, we finally arrived at the western entrance to Badlands National Park, South Dakota. The Badlands is mostly comprised of a maze of buttes and gorges that extend for approximately 100 miles east-west, creating an impassable wall with numerous little pinnacles. The name came from the Sioux Indians, the French explorers, and anyone else who tried to come to this land to farm, or merely to cross.

After grabbing buffalo burgers to go, we drove out to the Panorama Point, a lookout, for sunset. A great thunderstorm to the south gave a massive lightning storm that looked awesome (from far away). It was super nice being able to just have dinner outside, watching the quiet sunset with distant thunder, without anyone nearby (the park was quite empty!).