My Town | Weekly Photo & Journal Prompt
This week's prompt is brought to you by participant Emily Gilbert!
Hello everyone! Thank you to Mandy for allowing me to pick the topic this week. I suggested that we talk about the town or city in which you live.
I live in Omaha, Nebraska (smack dab in the middle of it all). The population is around 435,000 people in the city, and add on about another 100,000+ if you count the surround suburbs. We are best known for Omaha Steaks, the College World Series, home to Warren Buffet, and having the number one zoo in America.
Photo courtesy of Emily Gilbert.
I’ve lived in Omaha most of my life. I went to grade school, jr high, highschool, and college here. My son was born here. While I’ve toyed with the idea of experiencing a new city to live in, chances are good that Omaha will always be my home. While there are some negative things about my city, today I want to focus on the positives and list off my favorite places:
Photo courtesy of Emily Gilbert.
Henry Doorly Zoo: The zoo might be my favorite place to go. We have a two-story indoor rain forest, indoor desert dome, indoor swamp and cave, large aquarium, gorilla complex, iMax theater, and they are putting in a HUGE safari complex (completed by next summer).
Fontenelle Forest/ Neale Woods: For those of you who like hiking, both of these places are awesome. Fontenelle forest has a boardwalk that stretches one mile, which is very handy for those of us with young kids. They also have a number of other trails that go off into the deep woods. Neale woods offers a planetarium and a number of hiking paths as well.
Photo courtesy of Emily Gilbert.
Lauritzen Gardens: The gardens are a great place to go in the spring and summer, especially when all the roses are in bloom. They have various gardens throughout. Recently they completed a large 3 story green house for tropical plants.
Vala’s Pumpkin Patch: Every autumn Vala’s farm puts on a spectacular pumpkin patch. It’s packed almost every day during the season. They have food vendors everywhere, not-too-scary haunted houses, animal rides, petting zoo, hayrack rides, bonfires and numerous other activities.
Children’s Museum: This place is huge and like a giant jungle gym. There are specialty areas such as the art room, science room, and whatever specialty exhibit they have going on. It’s a great way to entertain the kids (adults might be overwhelmed out of their minds).
Photo courtesy of Emily Gilbert.
Old Market: The old market is one of the most visually pleasing places in Omaha. Old brick building line the street, and the roads are also paved in brick. There are numerous specialty shops, restaurants, bars, and coffee shops.
The TD Ameritrade is our baseball park. Photo courtesy of Emily Gilbert.
Downtown: Okay, to be honest our downtown is not that exciting. The building are beautiful, but they are mostly converted lofts and businesses. However, they do have numerous restaurants, the Orpheum theater (think ballets), the Holland Arts Center (think orchestras), Century Link Center (where famous musicians put on concerts) , and the TD Ameritrade baseball park. In the summer time they house the Summer Arts Festival which vendors display and sell art, musicians play live music, beer gardens, and street food vendors.
Photo courtesy of Emily Gilbert.
Durham Museum: If you love art deco, you’ll LOVE this place. It is a gorgeous old train station turned museum. They have an old fashion ice cream and soda fountain restaurant inside. They also have various things to look at down stairs such as old train cars decorated to look like different time periods, a large model train, an old trolley, and other specialty exhibits.
Joslyn Art Museum: Another place to go if you love the look of art decor and marble. The building is old and gorgeous. The art museum offers a wide variety of art classes, and also ever-changing art exhibits.
Other Hip Areas of Town: Midtown, Benson, Dundee, Aksarben
Beautiful Parks: Elmwood Park, Memorial Park, Gene Leahy Mall (it’s park not a mall), Heartland of America park, Louis and Clark landing, and the Pedestrian bridge (goes over the Missouri river)
Omaha also has numerous farmers markets around town on the weekends and many nightlife activities for adults.
Anyway, I’m done with my exhaustive list of my favorite places to go in Omaha. What about you all? What are your favorite things about your town/ city? Where are your favorite places to go? How long have you lived there?"
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#ThisWeek | A weekly photo & story prompt for memory keepers originated by Mandy Elliott of Turquoise Avenue designed to encourage others to take a photograph and spend time creating a story based on the weekly theme. Together, in collaboration with other talented creatives, #ThisWeek is a free, fun, and inspiring challenge allowing you to join in any time, any way that best fits your schedule. Play along by sharing on social media under #hashtagthisweek or by linking up via TurquoiseAve.com.
