Friday got off to a fantastic start! Catherine and I drove up to Blackhawk, SD, which is just a little outside of Rapid City, to see the local Family Dollar. I met up with the DM in the area, Phil, and was able meet 2 great Associates, Connie and Danielle. Both Connie and Danielle were from the Blackhawk area and love it! It was also easy to see how much they also love Family Dollar! Both told me about their first experience with Family Dollar (Family Dollar hasn't been in South Daktoa for very long. I think we have around 10 stores in the state and the Blackhawk store is relativly new). Both women walked into the St. Patrick's Street store and fell in love! They were excited to find out that a store would be coming into their town!
Connie told me that one of her favorite things about working at the store is opening the boxes of merchandise after they come off the truck. She says it's like Christmas everyday! Danielle mentioned that she enjoyed talking with her customers and really getting to know them. She said that they have a bunch of regular customers and liked to be able to greet them with their first name and build a relationship with them.
We moved on to the St. Patrick's Street store in Rapid City where I got to meet 3 super Associates, Rick, Ron and Carol. Rick was our first Store Manager in South Dakota and I could tell how dedicated he was. Rick keeps his store in tip-top shape and has a great time doing it. He is a fantastic merchandiser and loves that he gets to be creative. Ron is a bit quiter than Rick, but he smiled when I asked him what he liked best about working at Family Dollar. He just told me that he loves it and I could tell that was true. Phil mentioned that if he would let him, Ron would work all of the time because he has such a great time! Carol likes to organize the store. She loves the family atmosphere at work and keeps everything in order! All 3 love their customers and their customers love them.
One of the things I really enjoyed about Phil was that I could see how much he cared about all of his people. He told me several times how lucky he was to have such dedicated Associates, but I could also see how much respect for Phil all of the Associates had. He really cares for them and is determined to see them all succeed. I am so lucky to have been able to spend a little time with him!
After getting some fantastic directions from Phil to the Badlands, Catherine and I took off. We found the loop road that Phil was talking about and headed into the Badlands. It is almost difficult to describe their beauty. The Badlands seem to be one of those places that is difficult to decide if they are beautiful or ugly. They look like someone piled sand up to make a sand castle, gave up and started drizzling water down them. They are certainly an interesting sight. The longer we were in the Badlands, the more I began to appreciate their beauty. Catherine mentioned that she thought the Badlands got their name because outlaws used to hide in the caves and no one could find them. It's easy to see how that could be the case. If someone wanted to disapear, it would not be a problem to do so. The biggest problem would be trying to find your way out!
We headed out and hit I-90. The wind was INSANE and everytime we would drive past a truck, the wind would try and blow us off the road. It stayed that way for about 4 hours. We were on the road for a long time yesterday on our way to Omaha, Nebraska, most of which was in South Dakota. The further east we went the more green and flat it became, which probably accounts for some of the wind. We entered Central time, just ouside of Pierre, SD. A while later we saw a sign for something called the "Corn Palace" and decided that we had to see what it was. We discovered that it was literally, a palace made of corn.
Once we finally made it out of South Dakota, we were surprised to find out that we would be spending a little time in Iowa. Who knew that you had to go through Iowa to get to Omaha, NE? We certainly didn't expect it, although we were only in it for an hour or so. Once we left Iowa, we were basically in Omaha. Patti, Catherine's friend from the Sisters of Mercy gave us a call and we headed to her house in Louisville (pronounced Lewisville...we kept saying it wrong out of habit!).
Patti has a super cute A-frame house on the Platte River just outside of Omaha. We hung out there for a while and then headed to our hotel.
Today was a wonderfully relaxing day! We did a lot of sightseeing and not much driving, which was nice. We headed over to Patti's house around 10:00 this morning and then, along with Patti's daughter Megan and her friend Robyn, we hit the city of Omaha. Omaha looks nothing like what I think Nebraska should look like. It isn't brown at all, in fact, it's green. Patti told us that, because it's on the Missouri River, Omaha tends to look very different from the rest of Nebraska. The Missouri keeps the city green and humid! We ate lunch on the river and got to see some neat statues! They were all over the city. Including the one below, we saw a stagecoach, Native Americans and settlers. All were huge and lovely.
We walked around for a while and then hit the Market District for some shopping! The Market District is a bunch of old buildings that have been turned into shops and restaurants. It reminded me a lot of my apartment in Charlotte! Lots of exposed brick and large windows. It did have some fantastic shopping though. I was bought a great necklace and we had a great time just walking around.
We headed over to the Mall, which is a lovely park with bridges over the river. We walked the whole thing and discovered that it was a hotspot for wedding party pictures. In a span of about 1 hour, we saw 4 wedding parties taking pictures!
If you're wondering about the "O!" that is my title for this post, that is the slogan for Omaha because it's the exact reaction that people have to Omaha once they visit, and I have to say that I agree. Omaha is a great city! I never expected to have so much fun!
Around 4 we headed back to Patti's house in Louisville. Louisville is a small town just outside of Omaha and today it was celebrating it's 150th birthday! We had a fabulous time walking around the downtown, checking out shops and seeing how much fun it could be to live in a small town! A bunch of the festivities weren't starting until later, so Patti took us to see some of the state parks in the area. One of them was on the Platte River and the other was just a little bit from Louisville. We climbed the tower in one of the parks and were treated to a fantastic view of the countryside! The Omaha area is fantastic! After climbing down, we found a tepee that Patti told us, you could rent and stay in. So cool! We were wishing that we had known sooner so we could have stayed in one!
We headed back into town because the festivities were starting, but first, needed to eat dinner. We had a true Omaha Steak for dinner and yes, it was delicious! Yummy! After dinner, we headed over the the school for the fireworks and were amazed at how great they were! We were so close to them that it seemed like they were exploding in front of us! We watched them light up the night sky for about 30 minutes and then we headed back to our hotel.
Overall, I had a wonderful day! I got to experience a large city and a small one all in one day, and I can definitely understand why people love living in this area. It absolutly exceeded my expections!
Change of plans, tomorrow we head for St. Louis and then on to Louisville!
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