After a nice afternoon at the Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha, we were ready to head towards where we were spending the night. Our routine has been to get the car gassed up in the evening so we don't have to stop and do it on the way out of town each morning. There was a Costco a few miles from the gardens, so we put it in the GPS to take us there.
Well, let me tell you - I've been writing and rewriting a post in my head that I call "Of Apps and Maps" and this was the moment when the Apps were losing! Our GPS is Google Maps - we use the female voice, so we always just call her She. I have no idea what She was thinking because she had us go a crazy way on the interstate and state highways that are worse than Atlanta's spaghetti junction. It's probably some preference setting that I haven't figured out yet, but it was an "ah ha" moment for me to start the directions on my phone where I can scroll and see the route she's picked easier than I can do it when she's plugged into the car. (We opted to not use Waze because it doesn't function as well with my phone and car together.) We could have gone about 6 blocks north, then 4 miles west without having to make any other turns or merges!
But I digress! One of the planning activities I did for this trip was identify where the Costco Warehouses are along our route. We know gas is usually less expensive at Costco, so as long as we weren't having to go far out of the way, that would be a best bet. We finally made it to the gas station. It was busy but the cars moved through pretty quickly.
We went into the store to see what all they might have that is different than we can find at home. There wasn't anything specific, but we stocked up on a few things we wanted after having been on the road for two weeks at this point. It was a really nice Costco.
Next stop, getting to the Offutt Manor, our home for the evening. This boutique hotel doesn't have a staff person there all day, so they send you the codes and information for accessing the house and your room. When we got there, we had to go in the side entrance and up the stairs to where our room was located. This is when we're glad we've got our packing condensed so we don't have to bring everything in at every place, and the things we do need to bring in are in bags with good handles/straps and not too hard to handle. I'll write more about the Offutt Manor at the end of this post.
The location of the Offutt Manor is one block off the Blackstone District in Omaha. Blackstone is an area where there are restaurants, bars, shopping, entertainment, ice cream, etc. It's a trending area, so the area was pretty busy even on a week night. We were close enough to walk, so that was nice to not have to figure out parking. Oh, did I mention that there are lots of one-way streets and no left turns from the main street onto the side roads? That made it difficult when She was telling us to Turn Left where the signs clearly said No Left Turn!
Another part of my pre-travel planning activities was to try to find places to eat that had good gluten-free options. In Omaha, there is a restaurant called First Round, and it happened to be in Blackstone. One of the owners has Celiac like I do, and the article I read about them made me feel like they would be a safe place for me. I had their wings and they were so delicious! The young man who served us was friendly and spent some time talking with us about life in Omaha; he grew up there and really enjoyed living in the city.
After dinner, we walked a half a block and stopped for ice cream at Coneflower Creamery. This is a "farm to cone" ice cream shop that makes their own ice cream and cones. I had butter pecan (in a cup, of course) while DH got chocolate. It was a pretty popular place as they had a line when we walked by on the way to dinner and still had a steady line when we stopped to get ours! We sat on a bench to eat our ice cream and people watch before heading back to the Offutt Manor.
The Offutt Manor is a historical home in Omaha that was built in 1894. If you are a fan of the TV series Ghosts, this place reminded me of that - and when I was working in the dining room late that night, I wondered if there might be ghosts watching what I was doing!
We stayed in the Astaire room. Here are a few pictures of the room. You might notice the big step up into the bathroom; that was a bit odd - I measured it and it was the length of my size 8 shoe. We had to be careful so we wouldn't fall out of the bathroom!
Here are a few pictures of the rest of the house. It's beautiful, and as guests, we had free run of the house - thus my use of the dining room table to work at as there was no desk in the room.
The room was comfortable and our sleep was not disturbed by ghosts. We left early the next morning before the innkeeper arrived, so we never saw anyone who worked there the whole time we were there. I never think that's weird when we stay at an Air BnB, but somehow it felt a bit off staying at an old historic home like this. I did see where they offer the rooms through Air BnB, but then I also saw on their Facebook page that the building is up for sale.
You can read more about the Offutt Manor and its history online.
~ Cindy D.
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