Greetings from Omaha! This is not a city that I've spent any time in prior to this trip, but I tell ya: Omaha and I get along like a house afire! I haven't gotten lost once, all the people I've met have been super nice and friendly, the zoo here is awesome, and the Swim Trials have been pretty fantastic, too. I haven't been disappointed by anything thus far. I didn't have much in the way of expectations, so it's hard to disappoint, I guess. But Omaha? You're awesome.
I saw a little bit of color at the botanical garden. I'm not really into gardens, and the heat has taken much of the color out of the place. I found a few flowers to take pictures of, but mostly it was taking picture of non-planty things:
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| They have a model train garden with a number of trams and trains running through it. Coolest part of the whole place, I thought. |
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| Some sort of Mt. Fuji replica? It was interesting. |
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| One of the roses in the rose garden. |
The zoo is really cool and full of babies!
It was warm yesterday, but I knew it would be triple digit heat for today and tomorrow, so I visited the zoo and the botanical garden yesterday. The zoo was really great. The baby gorilla was especially adorable. He was very energetic and super excited to interact with the visitors. He'd run around and cheese it up for the people. He seriously enjoyed pounding on the glass when people's backs were turned. It was cute and made for a lot of laughs. The baby seal and the baby zebra were both busy most of the time with eating from their moms. The baby giraffe was pretty calm, just walking around. S/he eventually went over and laid down next to Mom in the shade. I haven't seen so many baby animals in one zoo before, I don't think. It was fun. Other animals?
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| They have a monkey island. The little one in front is a Peruvian monkey. |
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| Babies aside, the gorillas are always the saddest animals to see in zoos, I think. They're too much like humans to really enjoy watching them stuck in glass boxes. This one would sit like this until you walked by one window and then he'd turn his head and look at you before going back to staring off into space again. It made me sad. But, I try to look like this when I do that one sitting pose in yoga. I'm going to remember how well he did it and try to emulate the gorilla next time I do yoga. |
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| Young African Lion. I got several other pictures of this one, but there was a herd of young elementary kids looking through the glass and the cat couldn't stop licking its lips while looking at them. |
I have more to tell. The Olympic Trials have been pretty neat so far, but I'll wait and do another post on it later in the week. I'm learning a lot about swimming, though. This is apparently a bigger swim meet for US swimmers than the Olympics because the majority of the best swimmers in the world are here in the USA and there are fewer than 26 slots on both the men and women's teams. So, inevitably, some of the best swimmers in the world are left off the team. I've gotten some good swim pictures in the pool. Not many photos outside of that, although, it turns out that I was standing near Ryan Lochte this evening, but I didn't recognize him. He looked like all the other male athletes walking around in over-sized headphones and track suits. I was kind of surprised when a flock of teenage girls suddenly formed and began rushing toward me screaming 'RYAN! RYAN!' The mob that engulfed the dude screaming for autographs and pictures tipped me off as to who this guy was. I didn't shove my camera in to get a photograph. I can't make myself become one of those people who are pushing and shoving for autographs and screaming at some poor athlete. I'm not able to tap into that part of me anymore. That girl died with my backstreet boys obsession over a decade ago. Here's one picture I'll share tonight from this evening's medal ceremonies when the four guys heading to London in the men's 200m freestyle were waiting in the pit. Of course, everybody getting medals are in a good mood. These guys were having a good time and I didn't see anything that looked like Phelps and Lochte aren't friendly toward each other. I think that's really just something the media want everyone to think to boost ratings. All four fellas seemed pretty cheerful to be together joking around during the wait:
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| (l-r): Ricky Berens, Coner Dwyer, Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte |
More pictures to come later in the week! Ciao!
