A Labor Day Extravaganza

As I try to ease my way back to the blogosphere I'll talk about the latest road trip adventure. Richard Pomicter and Jeff had been talking for a while about a visit to Richard's hometown of Omaha. As plans progressed Mike D and I were invited to spend the long weekend in the solid red state of Nebraska. Jeff was to come down from Minneapolis to Ames on Friday after putting in a hard day of work at his job. Jeff's arrival was to be around 8:30-9pm and then the 3 of us would head out to Omaha that same night. Well, things went smoothly and Jeff arrived and we proceeded to load his car with our belongings. And here the adventure begins...
Jeff had mentioned that he needed gas and was running low when he got to Ames. As he tries to turn on his car...it won't start. He keeps trying and nothing happens. No problem though, we'll just take my car to the gas station and fill up a little container and come back and put some gas in Jeff's car. We do that, put some gas in Jeff's car and....it won't start. We keep trying and trying and we figure the fuel pump must have been damaged on his way down. So we take the stuff from Jeff's car and load it in my car and we head out to Omaha at around 10pm. About an hour behind schedule but it's all good.
The trip consists of listening to Incubus acoustic songs and some Johnny Cash along with good male bonding conversation. We get to Omaha in about 2 and a half hours (no traffic whatsoever) and easily find Richard's place. We arrive, make ourselves relatively comfortable and start catching up on our life details. It was fun seeing Richard again, it had been about six months or so since we last saw each other. We start making preliminary travel plans for the Feast so that we have an idea of what we're doing as we make our way out to Copper Mountain. We have some good ol' male bonding talks that last until 5am Sabbath morning. We finally decide to go to bed and get some rest.
The Sabbath was a very good day from the start. Richard showed off his cooking skills with tasty breakfast burritos for everybody and after getting ready we left for Church. The Omaha congregation moved locations for services and not only is it near Richard's house but it is also a state of the art, very nice and clean place. I was quite impressed with the location, much better than where services used to be held. It was good seeing the people there, it had been about a year since I last visited and some of the kids have grown so much since I last saw them. Plus, I got to hold gooey twins that are adorable and drool a lot :) Actually, only one of the babies is gooey and drooly (is that even a word?), the other is on the smaller side and skinnier. It was fun, the sermon was incredibly inspiring and it led to a massive dinner afterwards :)
Dinner was at an Italian buffet...quite simply the most ingenious idea any single person could come up with. Combining the elements of Italian food with the "all you can eat" American ideology and it made for a stuffing of nirvana proportions that would have made Krishna proud. After dinner we headed to Alex and Jenelle's place for a night of card games, Bible trivia, and chillin' out. I apparently passed out at around 2am in a very uncomfortable position in a comfy chair and was woken up at 3 so that we could head out. After finding Mike and driving through the thick fog with visibility being close to 0%, we made it to Richard's house safely. I think we all went straight to sleep afterwards and rest up for some potential tennis the next day.
Sunday was a day of chillin', playing guitar, trying to master Call Of Duty 2 on Richard's PC, and after much delay some tennis. It was quite fun playing tennis again. It's not my sport but I have improved a little bit since I last played two years ago. I got to play Mike and he completely killed me by winning 6-2. I was proud of the fact that I got two points. Then as the other guys played I passed out in the car for about an hour. Afterwards we headed back to Richard's crib, showered, ate dinner with his parents and headed out to the Old Market in Omaha. The place is beautiful, lots of scenery and it makes for great conversation.
Monday came and nothing eventful happened. We left Omaha in the afternoon and made it to Ames before sunset. Another safe drive and a weekend full of fun and great exchanges of ideas. I definitely needed the time with the guys. I can't wait for the Feast to come and embark on another life-changing road trip :)