It’s not very often you get to knock off a bucket list item, but the end of April we did just that. We bought a Pop-up Camper! This has been something Vicky has been dying to do and she finally found the right deal at the right time. So the next issue was finding a good time to break it in. Luckily, we had a trip planned to Lincoln, NE coming up in June that we’d not booked lodging for yet.
Usually Vicky is very excited for trips and vacations, but this time she was filled with trepidation. We’d be driving 3 hours with the pop-up on this first outing. She’d hope for a closer and smaller test run so this felt like a wild and crazy jump. Despite the nerves (and much razzing from me), we made it safely to the West Omaha/NE Lincoln KOA.
We’d left late afternoon on Friday so we’d arrive around dinner time and needed to find food after getting setup. The last time we’d been in the area we’d liked the wineries nearby so thought that was a good spot to start. The one we remembered trying didn’t look like it had much for food options so we opted for a new experience at Glacial Till Cidery and Winery.
This place was great. I loved the vibe. It was somehow both relaxed small-town while being hipster industrial chic. As the name implied, they had both wines and ciders to try so we got a mix of both. Vicky tried a couple of wines and ciders. I stuck with wines. Our tasting notes on each are below.
Marquette
Good, Nice dry. Not amazing, but no real faults other than a lack of depth.
Nose: Cassis, Red Fruit
Taste: Cassis, pepper
Petite Pearl
2022 Bourbon Barrel Aged
La Crescent
Strawberry Rhubarb Cider
Honey Lavender Cider
Tails and Trails
Chambourcin
In the end, we really liked the place but that was more the vibe and experience than the quality of the wine.
The next day was a bit more relaxed. Mostly visiting and hanging out with family with nothing terribly interesting or specific happening. Well except for the Gateway Mall. Now this is going to sound odd, but when you have a small child simple things impress you. We were just wandering around the mall to kill time while waiting for family and just found the place impressive from a family friendly stand point. First they had a toddler/baby play area which was super cute and fun. While playing there we noticed a certain aroma so went scrambling for a restroom.
We saw signs for restrooms and a family lounge area. We knew for sure we wanted at least restrooms, but family lounge? Tell me more! After dutifully following the signs, we’d found the Promised Land. The Family Lounge was a mega-changing room/nursing room. There were about 6 changing stations with trashes and sinks in between. It had 3 nursing alcoves; a small waiting and play area; and a family restroom with child size toilets and sinks. I mean it was just amazing. If you don’t have kids, you may not recognize how cool this was, but it was the highlight of our mall visit.
Sunday we had to pulldown the popup and pack ourselves up. For our first real trip we did pretty good. Although, Lizzy would tell you we did a terrible job. She spent a lot of time complaining that we weren’t giving her enough attention during the whole process. Leaving the campground only a few minutes late, we were on our way to the Lincoln Children’s Zoo.
Our first major roadblock at the zoo was parking. Since we were hauling the popup we didn't fit in the main lot. This was pretty disappointing because we remembered the lot being big, but forgot about the lane dividers which prevented us from being able to pull through. After initially parking at a nearby park, we noticed the overflow lot which had nice big spots to allow us to pull through on so we moved there. With that hiccup cleared, it was time to actually enjoy the zoo.
The Lincoln Children’s Zoo was a pleasure as always. We started by visiting the red pandas by the entrance to say hi to Rudy’s cousins (Rudy is our giant plushy red panda we got on our last trip here). After that we stopped by the tiger on our way to the Secret Jungle (a jungle gym with a spider monkey exhibit). Lizzy was fascinating to one of the monkeys until Vicky pulled out her lunch. After that Vicky had an audience. Next on the agenda was the giraffes and when you go to see the giraffes well then you’d better feed them too.
We continued to meander our way through the zoo and Lizzy was having a blast looking at all the interesting animals. She got really excited at the Fennec Fox which look almost as cute as her cats at home. When we got to the penguins she started buzzing with excitement. She loves penguins. After the penguins, we watched a sloth presentation and Lizzy got a zoo trading card. Finally we finished up the last little bit of the zoo we had left before heading to the gift shop. Because Lizzy is a girl of exquisite taste, she picked out a mini red panda plushy to take home.
From there it was time to drive home. Vicky decided it was my turn to get used to hauling the popup. I’ve never felt so fat and blind in my life. It was a bit nerve-wracking and awkward, but I got us home safely. The next trick was to get the popup backed into our driveway which we’d never done before. Last time we’d had a friend come out and help us, but Vicky was determined. After only a few attempts she not only had it in the driveway but almost perfectly lined up with the garage door. After a couple minutes of manual adjustments, we re-hooked it up and backed it into the garage. The maiden voyage of our new family popup was complete! Onward to many more!
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