I’m a Cornhusker

Wisconsin to Minnesota to Iowa to Nebraska…Day 1 is complete! Today I learned a few things about myself:

I burn a lot of calories for sitting in a car all day (dancing to music in my seat)
I am great at rationing my water so I don’t have to stop to pee frequently
Iowa is not my favorite state
I could live in Nebraska

The drive through Minnesota was not very exciting, but Iowa was even worse. Iowa is like the farm fields of Wisconsin, except for they cover the ENTIRE state! However, there were a bunch of giant wind turbines to gawk at every 50 miles, so there was a little variety in scenery. The lowlight(s) of my day would be driving through snowstorms 4 different times throughout my trip. I was hoping that as soon as I started driving south the temperature would spike 20 degrees, but it actually went down 5 instead. Then I was hoping to encounter a tornado, but Iowa and Nebraska got snow instead.

Once I got to Nebraska, I stopped at Omaha’s Henry Doolry Zoo for a few minutes…oorrrr a few hours. This zoo would make going to Nebraska worth it for anyone who loves animals. They have wildlife from all over the world, and I even pet a starfish today. I saw a pygmy hippo for the first time ever, and befriended a puffin. I also met a lovely Omaha native who walked around the zoo with me for part of the time. One of the big perks of traveling solo is if you want human interaction, you have to go out of your comfort zone.

After the zoo I drove an hour to Lincoln, where I checked into my hotel, grabbed some “Runza” (Nebraskan fast food, suggested by a coworker), and drove downtown to check out the Cornhusker’s football stadium. Lincoln is a pretty cool smaller city. Omaha and Lincoln make me feel like I could live in Nebraska, and Memorial Stadium makes me feel like I could root on the Cornhuskers.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from today. I also have videos of a hippo rolling around underwater and my little puffin swimming after me at the zoo, and those can be found on my Instagram. Tomorrow I’ll make my way over to Colorado, with a few stops along the way. The Omaha native agreed that driving through the rest of Nebraska will probably be very boring. Good think I have my CDs from high school to jam to for hours!