Wild Life

In June we took another trip to Nebraska to visit family.  This trip helped me remember how many fun and free or cheap things there are to explore with kids in Lincoln. It's fun, years later, as a mom, to experience a few of them with my own kids and my friends' kids.

On a warm, sunny morning we met up with my good friend Erin and her crew for a day at the Pioneers Park Nature Center.  To start our day, we stopped on the bison (pronounced with a z sound if you're in North Dakota and an s sound if you're in Nebraska) bench for a picture

and another picture.

From left:  Isaac, Noah, Xandra, Aliyah, Grace, Ellie, Joey looking on, Theia not pictured

After pictures we ventured inside and found a really big snake.

All of my girls surprised me by willingly touching it

and then being sad when it was back in its cage.

Joey found a snake, that may or may not have been fake, of his own by raiding a bin in the gift shop while we were distracted.

Outside we saw elk with amazingly fuzzy, large horns

from the safety of a bridge.

We also saw this large frog

and some geese, too.

After being outside we ventured to another section of the indoor nature center and saw these owls, uncaged

and perched both low and high.

 

After we'd thoroughly explored the nature center, we headed to the playground for lunch and then hiked up to the famous Indian statue.  This statue has been here for a long, long time or at least since I was a kid, which is seeming like a long, long time ago with each passing year.  We used to hike to it when I was a kid.  It seemed a lot bigger when I was a child.

After our hike to the statue we enjoyed some chocolate chip cookies and headed home.  On our way out of the park I took a picture of the famous buffalo (it may actually be a bison, but we always called it a buffalo growing up) statue at the entrance of the park.  I'm guessing if you dug through the shoebox of pictures my mom's got from my childhood you'd find several of me perched next to this statue.

We had to leave something for next time, after all.