It was in the high 80s / low 90s while we were at the Lake Manawa State Park in Council Bluff, IA for 4 nights. Omaha, NE was only about 20 minutes away, so we spent an evening exploring there, too, not realizing the College World Series was happening. We could tell something special was going on, since there were so many people walking around; and food trucks, tents and music, along with packed parking lots! We got super lucky and found a free “spot” that didn’t have any no parking signs around it, so we took our chances and parked the truck there. Because parking was so limited, we got around the city on Lime electric scooters instead of attempting to move the truck. I really enjoy zipping around on them — it makes getting from one place to another more fun than walking!
We spent an hour or so wandering around the Hot Shops Art Center, which had some pretty cool art work (some more weird than cool, though). Paintings, photography, blacksmith work, blown glass, etc. From there we scootered to the Pioneer Courage Park to see a bunch of bronze sculptures of a wagon train. That was pretty cool, too. We scootered over to The Old Market area then to the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge. We had to leave the scooters a ways from the bridge and then walked back a different way to get the truck. We drove to the Coneflower Creamery, but when we saw the long line formed around the block, we decided to go to Ted & Wally’s Ultra-Premium Homemade Ice Cream instead. I was surprised to see we were back near The Old Market area, where we had been just an hour before, haha.
As we were leaving, tow trucks were circling the area, but it seemed like they were concentrating on cars that didn’t have a permit to park in a nearby permit-only lot; we were happy to see our truck safe and sound, where we left it!
I noticed there was a sailboat race at the nearby Lake Manawa Sailboat Association, so we decided to drive over to the other side of the lake to see if there was anything interesting to watch. There wasn’t much to see except for the sailboats out on the water, but we met Teressa, one of the sailboat school instructors. After talking to us for a while, she invited us out on her boat! She took the time to explain a lot of the sailing vocabulary and show us how things worked. It was a fantastic experience!
We visited Victory Fellowship Church and thought I’d made a mistake when we saw a few guys wearing jewish caps. Turns out their pastor is on a sabbatical so other men in the church are taking turns preaching. The guy whose turn it was has a Messianic Jewish Rabbi father who he invited to “preach”. The rabbi taught a little about the Torah, undressing it and letting us look at its print, then dressing it back in its Belt of truth, Shield of faith, Breastplate of righteousness, and Helmet of salvation. He also sang scripture in Hebrew. It was an unexpected and interesting experience.
After church, we ate lunch at La Mesa Mexican Restaurant, then hung out on the Lake Manawa Beach for a couple of hours. It was in the low 90s and the sand was super hot; but there was a good breeze, so it felt nice enough under the shade of my umbrella. Before heading back to the RV, we grabbed some ice cream at Doozies, recommended by Teressa. Definitely yummy!
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