A world of cactus inside the Desert Dome, the world's largest glazed geodesic structure at Omaha's Harry Doorly Zoo.
This snow leopard, which can weigh up 160 pounds and is known to snack on large mammals, was ornery, vocal and quite photogenic.
Walking under the sea monsters is always a treat. Love aquariums.
Knew I was in the right Omaha neighborhood when I spied this bronze buffalo bursting out of the corner of this downtown bank.
Shucking Corn: State No. 44, Nebraska
Glad that, once again, my schedule was fluid and not pegged to any reservations, less my flight home out of Little Rock, I changed course and drove south through Omaha out to the zoo. Day 1 just got a little busier.
Located at the crossroads of America at about the midway point of Nebraska’s river border with Iowa, Omaha’s a pleasant surprise. It seems an orderly and clean with modern architecture mixed with many ornate post-WWII buildings lining mostly wide streets and avenues easy to navigate by map.
Nebraska’s largest paid-attendance attraction, 114 years old and on lots of Top 10 lists, the zoo is named for posthumous benefactor Henry Doorly, a native of Barbados who moved to Omaha in the 1920s for work as a railroad surveyor and then toiled at the World-Herald newspaper, first as a mediocre reporter who then moved over to the business side and thrived in several executive capacities before marrying the boss’ daughter and later taking control of the family publishing empire.
This place has a train chugging around, a zip line charging through trees above the outdoor exhibits and an IMAX theater. Skipping those (tick-tock), I perused the big cats and the orangutans and apes. The cats were colorful and loud, the apes alternately playful and persnickety. I had another stop downtown and one across the mighty Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa, so I missed the bears, elephants and giraffes, etc. Just as well. Though I love zoos, after a while I get a caged-in feeling myself.
Oh, there's also a website: CLICK HERE
Upon exiting the zoo through the same door I entered through, I instantly saw a big problem. After being in the rental car about a half-hour, I pulled into the zoo’s almost empty lot, hopped out and didn’t look back. Now, instead of an empty lot, I was confronted with one filled with cars, hundreds of cars. The rental was compact, some sort of red and otherwise a complete mystery. I had to walk around pinging the electronic key about five minutes before I found it.
Before the zoo snuck into my day, I had planned to take in the Union Pacific Railroad Museum, but that was closed on Mondays, and then see a collection, The Spirit of Nebraska Wilderness, I had read about of over 100 statues stretching across six city blocks along and through Omaha’s downtown.
Life-sized bronze wagon trains and cowboys, buffaloes and birds in action poses are interspersed, sometimes immersed into structures, throughout the area. I had a rough idea of the location and sped over there. I found it when I came across a bronze buffalo bursting through the corner of a bank (see above).
It’s a chain reaction set in metal: the wagon train rolls with cowboys leading, the cowboys stampede the buffalo who in turn scare off the birds which take wing and fly into an open end of a building. It twists around corners, swings across streets and then pushes through parks before a final climax centered around a huge fountain pool. Nice scheme well done.
While I was busy checking out my rental car at the Omaha airport, the woman on the desk was also busy, convincing me, while in town, to visit Mutual of Omaha’s world-renowned Henry Doorly Zoo. Another clerk came over and joined in. But soon she was asking about my Boston accent, “Where you from? There’s something there. The Jersey Shore, something?” She didn’t seem disappointed after I, no TV “guido,” replied “Massachusetts.” After all, that’s “something,” I guess.
Anyway, I took the car… and the advice.
Glad that, once again, my schedule was fluid and not pegged to any reservations, less my flight home out of Little Rock, I changed course and drove south through Omaha out to the zoo. Day 1 just got a little busier.
Located at the crossroads of America at about the midway point of Nebraska’s river border with Iowa, Omaha’s a pleasant surprise. It seems an orderly and clean with modern architecture mixed with many ornate post-WWII buildings lining mostly wide streets and avenues easy to navigate by map.
With comparatively (to the Bay State) low personal income and business tax rates, the Cornhusker State’s unemployment rate is currently 4.5 percent, less than half the national figure, according to my research. So mostly everybody’s working and there are plenty of businesses here.
Omaha is the home to the headquarters of Fortune 500 regulars Con Agra Foods, investment paragon Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, the Union Pacific Railroad and mining giant Kiewit Corp. as well as many mid-sized concerns. I passed a wealth of museums, lots of big home-grown steak houses (sure seems no chains need apply in this stockyard center) and all manner of honky-tonks. My kind of town. Wish I had time.
Also heartily recommended in a recent e-mail from 2006 fellow road trippers well met in Moab, Utah, Canadians Kelly and Rocket of Whistler, B.C., the zoo was inside city limits, just south of I-80 and hard by Rosenblatt Stadium, home to college baseball’s World Series, the Triple-A Omaha Royals and a minor-league football team. The zoo will buy Rosenblatt when it’s replaced by a downtown stadium next year. But, for now, with the two just across a narrow street from each other, I shudder to think of the traffic jam if both were up and running events simultaneously.
Also heartily recommended in a recent e-mail from 2006 fellow road trippers well met in Moab, Utah, Canadians Kelly and Rocket of Whistler, B.C., the zoo was inside city limits, just south of I-80 and hard by Rosenblatt Stadium, home to college baseball’s World Series, the Triple-A Omaha Royals and a minor-league football team. The zoo will buy Rosenblatt when it’s replaced by a downtown stadium next year. But, for now, with the two just across a narrow street from each other, I shudder to think of the traffic jam if both were up and running events simultaneously.
Nebraska’s largest paid-attendance attraction, 114 years old and on lots of Top 10 lists, the zoo is named for posthumous benefactor Henry Doorly, a native of Barbados who moved to Omaha in the 1920s for work as a railroad surveyor and then toiled at the World-Herald newspaper, first as a mediocre reporter who then moved over to the business side and thrived in several executive capacities before marrying the boss’ daughter and later taking control of the family publishing empire.
After parking in a nearly empty lot, I asked the gent selling tickets to point out some must-see areas and then spent several hours wandering among the key exhibits, many labeled “The World’s Largest…” and visited:
- THE LIED JUNGLE: The world’s largest indoor rainforest where you walk in an open space, 1.5 acres in area and 80 feet tall, along pathways and catwalks through caves, along cliffs and by waterfalls amidst lush African, Asian and Amazon flora and many fauna of note, exotic parrots, gibbons and capuchins high up in the treetops, tapirs and pigmy hippos on the sodden floor and, immersed in the interwoven waterways, three-foot-long catfish and huge Arapaima, the world’s largest fresh water species of fish, native to the Amazon and the size of a small boat. A unique experience, but humid and sticky inside.
- THE DESERT DOME: The world’s largest glazed geodesic dome is 13 stories tall and 230 feet in diameter and visible from the road long before you see the zoo. Containing elements of African, Australian and American deserts, its sandy floor is home to uncountable cactus, all shapes and sizes, surrounded by caged exhibits of native snakes, lizards and monitors and many small mammals. Underneath the dome is another level, The Kingdoms of the Night, the world's largest nocturnal desert exhibit, a dark tunnel around cages and exhibits of bats, sloths, snakes and spiders. Having driven 30-plus miles across Big Bend National Park on the Mexican border with Texas after sundown one 2006 evening, I can personally attest that the desert truly comes alive at night. Another cool exhibit but there’s nothing like the real thing. (Eds. Note: Nebraska has 19,600 square miles of desert. Who knew?)
- THE KINGDOM OF THE SEAS: After a quick jaunt through a rather pedestrian butterfly and insect house, I chose the 71,000 square-foot aquarium, which has a 70-foot long walk-through tunnel under a giant aquarium stuffed with exotic fish, sharks, stingrays and sea turtles, etc. There’s puffins and penguins and octopi too. Can’t get enough of aquariums. Never. Just luv ‘em.
This place has a train chugging around, a zip line charging through trees above the outdoor exhibits and an IMAX theater. Skipping those (tick-tock), I perused the big cats and the orangutans and apes. The cats were colorful and loud, the apes alternately playful and persnickety. I had another stop downtown and one across the mighty Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa, so I missed the bears, elephants and giraffes, etc. Just as well. Though I love zoos, after a while I get a caged-in feeling myself.
Oh, there's also a website: CLICK HERE
Upon exiting the zoo through the same door I entered through, I instantly saw a big problem. After being in the rental car about a half-hour, I pulled into the zoo’s almost empty lot, hopped out and didn’t look back. Now, instead of an empty lot, I was confronted with one filled with cars, hundreds of cars. The rental was compact, some sort of red and otherwise a complete mystery. I had to walk around pinging the electronic key about five minutes before I found it.
Before the zoo snuck into my day, I had planned to take in the Union Pacific Railroad Museum, but that was closed on Mondays, and then see a collection, The Spirit of Nebraska Wilderness, I had read about of over 100 statues stretching across six city blocks along and through Omaha’s downtown.
Life-sized bronze wagon trains and cowboys, buffaloes and birds in action poses are interspersed, sometimes immersed into structures, throughout the area. I had a rough idea of the location and sped over there. I found it when I came across a bronze buffalo bursting through the corner of a bank (see above).
It’s a chain reaction set in metal: the wagon train rolls with cowboys leading, the cowboys stampede the buffalo who in turn scare off the birds which take wing and fly into an open end of a building. It twists around corners, swings across streets and then pushes through parks before a final climax centered around a huge fountain pool. Nice scheme well done.
Next, across the mighty Missouri River and into Iowa.
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