Road Trip Day 4: Long drive to Omaha with a sweet reward

I fear that this post is going to seem like a let down in the beginning.  Day 4 (Thursday) of this road trip largely consisted of driving mile after mile on I-80 across Nebraska.  But, your patience will be rewarded with some adorable pictures of the most adorable little man I've ever met.  Our day started out early.  Are you noticing a trend?  We needed to drive from Breckenridge, CO to Omaha, NE.  And, we wanted to get there early to spend some time with my brother, sister-in-law, and my nephew.  The beginning of the day was probably especially unpleasant for my mother because I was tired, hungry, and still a little salty that the weather hadn't cooperated for us to do Quandary Peak.  I think it was largely a food issue because once I had a yummy steak, egg, and cheese bundle from Mavrik convenience store in my tummy, I think I was a more pleasant travel companion.

Okay, I'm going to fast-forward through most of the day, because it pretty much just looked like this:

at this point, we still had approximately 350 miles to go until we reached Omaha

Although this day involved driving mile after mile and no fun side trips before our destination, our work was definitely well rewarded.  Just a few of the reasons that our stop in Omaha was one of my favorites:

1. Maggie got to run around in a back yard with her cousin puppy (my brother's dog).
2. My sister-in-law made us an AWESOME dinner of barbecue shredded chicken, broccoli salad (a favorite of mine), etc.
3. I got to play with this little guy on his swing set.

After dinner, the five of us went for a walk near the Old Market area of Omaha.  It is a really great area and a really fun place to walk.  Our first objective was "the big slides."  These were two parallel metal slides that were surprisingly long and even more surprisingly fast.

My heart melted when he came to the top of the slides with me and climbed on my lap to go down with me, without any provocation =)

After the big slides and a bit more walking, we arrived at our ultimate goal: ice cream.  This kid is definitely related to me.  The level of obsession with ice cream that we share has to be genetic, right? (I think my dad has it too).

This ice cream shop was phenomenal!  I had a flavor called "Salty Susie."  I'm not sure what's in it, but it tasted like a salted caramel ice cream with Oreo chunks mixed in.  My brother told me that you can call ahead and they'll make any flavor you want, as long as you order at least a gallon or some surprisingly reasonable volume.  Next time I'm in Omaha, I'll be placing an order for cotton candy ice cream, my absolute favorite =)

After our exploration of downtown, we returned home.  It was time to get some sleep....I had 12 hours of driving scheduled for the next day.