The Duplicity of a “Vacation” in “Omaha”… Part Très…

Our final day in Omaha was capped with another night in the camper.  This was kind of sad, because we knew that our vacation was slowly coming to an end.

Day five was to be our shopping day, so we hitched up the camper, left Mahoney, and drove to a mall in Lincoln.  We ate lunch at the mall food court (so everyone could get what they wanted… my family all got Chinese and I got a gyro).  We spent a few hours doing some back-to-school shopping, and then we decided we better head for our next destination.

The plan was to camp at Johnson Lake south of Lexington, but they wouldn’t let me make a reservation because we were just staying for one night.  They only make reservations for two nights on the weekends, so I wanted to get there before dark in case we needed to hunt down another camping spot for the night.

We swung into Grand Island to search for some place for supper.  I spotted the billboard for USA Steak Buffet and remembered seeing that billboard on other visits to Grand Island.

“Hey, let’s go to USA Steak Buffet,” I said.

So, immediately, the oldest son starts looking at reviews on the wife’s smart phone.  Needless to say, the reviews aren’t good.

“Uh, Dad, the reviews suck,” said the boy.

“Oh, you can’t always trust the reviews,” I said, thinking about how a really crappy dining experience would make for a humorous addition to my blog.  “I think we should try it anyway.”

“Dad, look at these reviews,” said the boy.  So I looked:

A Google User reviewed 5 months ago

Overall 0 / 3
This place sucks. Way over priced. Found hairs in the food. Tiny steaks. Do not come here.

A Google User reviewed 11 months ago

Overall 0 / 3
Waaaaaay over priced for what you get. Steaks are small and chewy. Family of give can’t go without paying over 60 bucks. Everytime you back, the price goes up. No group rates either… All you get for a group of 10 or more is 10% gratuity added to your bill. Poor value.
Liked: Food
Disliked: Service, Atmosphere, Value
A Google User reviewed 4 months ago

Overall 0 / 3
Way over priced for a not so great buffet
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“Oh, come on,” I said, “that’s only three reviews.  If it was that bad, there would be more.”

“But, Dad, the one dude found a hair,” said the boy, and I knew I was fighting a losing battle.  There was no way I was going to be able to talk the entire family into eating crappy food just for the sake of my blog, so we pulled in beside Olive Garden.

Olive Garden is not even close to one of my favorite places to eat, but the wife loves it and the boys don’t mind it, so I thought we’d give it a shot.  There was, however, like a 40 minute wait to get in, so we turned right back around and headed to Buffalo Wild Wings across the parking lot.

There was no wait to get in at Buffalo Wild Wings, and there was no hair in our food.  I really don’t have anything interesting to write, but I’m almost positive that USA Steak Buffet would have given me something to complain about.  But, sometimes you have to take one for the team at the expense of something to bitch about in a blog.  Although… this was only the second time I had ever been to a Buffalo Wild Wings, and I can honestly state that they are the noisiest restaurants on the face of the planet.  Apparently they are where you are supposed to take people you don’t actually like and want to talk to, because carrying on a conversation in a Buffalo Wild Wings is nearly impossible… especially if you are old and can’t hear very well in the first place.  Also, who in the hell came up with the idea of frying a part of a chicken that used to be disposable (because it’s almost all fat and no meat), covering it with a spicy sauce, and charging caviar prices for it?  That person should be shot.  Seriously, the prices for chicken wings are absolutely dented!  I guess if I think about it long enough, I could come up with a bitch about most anything…

So we eat and we drive and we drive and we drive and, before you know it, it’s dark.  We turn off at Lexington and try to find this state park that we’ve never been to — in the dark.

“We are so screwed,” I informed the family.

“Why?” asked the wife.

“I bet we get there and they have no open spots,” I said.

“What makes you think that?” asked the wife.

“Because that’s just my luck,” I said.  “Then, we’ll be driving around in the dark trying to find some place to spend the night.”

“If worse comes to worst, we can always get a hotel,” says the wife.  “You need to try to see the bright side of things.”

“There won’t be any open hotel rooms and we’ll end up parked in a rest area,” I said.  “So we’ll crawl into the hot camper with no air conditioning.  Then, a serial killer who frequents rest areas will find us and he’ll be all It’s like Christmas, time to open the present.  Then he’ll tear off the camper door and shiv us all to death as we groggily try to figure out what in the hell is going on.  It’s gonna be horrible.”

“Please don’t talk like that in front of the boys,” said the wife.  I glanced at the boys, and they did look a little peaked.  “That is never going to happen.”

“Mommy…” said the youngest boy, tears welling up in his terrified eyes, “are we going to die tonight?”

“Of course not,” said the wife, “you’re father is just an idiot tonight.”

So, we finally find the campground and they have an opening.  Lucky for us, ’cause I’m pretty sure there was a serial killer with our names on the dull blade of his near-blunt object waiting for us at a rest area.

We wake up the next day and I take the boys out geocaching for the morning while the wife enjoys a relaxing shower back at camp.  Geocaching is kind of geeky, but it is cheap fun, which is important when you are on a poor man’s camping vacation.  We find a few caches, and we head back to grab the wife and then drive into Lexington for lunch.

I had never really been through Lexington before, and I was a little shocked at the town.  There is literally a Mexican restaurant on every corner… and there are a lot of corners.  Before we got into town, we passed a Tyson foods processing plant, which I’m assuming is the employer in Lexington.  And apparently Tyson processing plants attract a lot of non-English speaking minorities.  In addition to the Mexican restaurants, we passed two Islamic centers… in Nebraska?!?  Who’d a thunk it?!?

So we settle on one of the Mexican places that has “buffet” in the window, ’cause we all like a good buffet (unless the reviews mention hair in the food, apparently).  On this whole trip, I really didn’t take any pictures for the blog because, well, I’m kind of an idiot.  However, Restaurant La Hacienda was so cool that I actually thought to get out my phone and snap a couple of pictures.
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See, Restaurant La Hacienda actually serves what I think is probably authentic Mexican food.  Scottsbluff touts it’s plethora of authentic Mexican restaurants, and people who move away always clamor about how they miss the authentic Mexican food in Scottsbluff.  Authentic in Scottsbluff means fried tacos.  A flour tortilla filled with beef taco meat and fried in fat to make the tortilla look like a corn taco shell like you buy at the store.  Then the cheese and lettuce and tomatoes are added, and that is authentic Mexican.  Don’t get me wrong, I love fried tacos (anything dripping with grease has got to be good, right?), I just don’t really imagine a lot of Mexicans in Mexico eating these on a regular basis.  I have a feeling fried tacos are a little more Tex Mex than they are Mexican…

So, anyway, at Restaurant La Hacienda, there was not a staff member (including our waitress) who spoke fluent English.  How awesome is that?  The small buffet was filled with things that were unrecognizable to me.  Different meats in sauces, for the most part, with the obligatory beans and rice.  The thing is, this wasn’t ground beef like in the fried tacos of Scottsbluff.  These were chunks of inexpensive meat filled with fat and gristle, but they were cooked for so long that the pieces of meat literally fell apart in my mouth.  An full of flavor?  Of course they were.  This is the kind of food I suspect the majority of Mexicans in Mexico eat — inexpensive, flavorful, fattening, and just down right delicious.

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Uploaded from the Photobucket Android App
This was soooo much better tasting than it looks...

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My favorite dish was the most bizarre (in American terms).  If was like strips of pork fat cooked on a tomatillo sauce. The fat reminded my of pork rinds (same flavor, but mushy instead of crispy).  It was absolutely to die for (and I’m sure my cholesterol levels after eating it had me near death).
And of course, there was flan for dessert.  There is nothing on this planet that is more heavenly than flan done right… and this flan was done right.
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The above tray was actually full until I came across it.  The Mexicans (I don’t think there was an English-speaking person in the place, staff or customer) looked at me like I was some kind of deranged, gluttonous gordo blanco… which I was.  The Cheesecake Factory can kiss Resaturant La Hacienda’s hiney!

So, after our fattening, delicious meal (if you’re ever in Lexington, check Restaurant La Hacienda out!), we headed back to Johnnson Lake, loaded up the camper, and headed for home.  We did a little more geocaching along the way.  We stopped in Ogallala so the family could get some supper (I had overdone it for lunch and didn’t need any further fuel for the machine… plus, good Mexican food gives one gas, and I was so full of gas, I had no room for more food).

Our final leg put us getting into Scottsbluff/Gering about 8:30 pm on day 6, and we had to get our dog from the boarding house before 9:00 pm, so we were right on track.  And then we get to the first set of railroad tracks in Gering… and we get stopped by a train.  The train passes, and we get to the first set of railroad tracks in Scottsbluff… and we get stopped by another train.  We get our beagle (who was intensely happy to see us 🙂 ), and we head for our house… only to get stopped by one final stinking stupid train… and I was reminded of one of the many reasons I need to get out of this area once in awhile.  In fact, after the three back-to-back train delays, I was already ready for another vacation…

Stinking “Social Network”

So I watched The Social Network last night.  My oldest son just turned 13, and he really wanted to see this movie, and this movie is PG-13, so we got it for him for his birthday.  If you live in a cave, you might not know that The Social Network is the story of how Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook.

Facebook Mark Z

We all enjoyed the movie.  I thought they were only able to drop one F-bomb in a PG-13 movie, but it looks like this one was able to get away with a couple.  The language and some of the implied sexual content made me a little uncomfortable watching this with my son (The Suite Life of Zack & Cody’s Brenda Song goes all Monica Lewinski in a bathroom stall… which was odd to watch with a boy who has grown up watching that particular show).

Brenda Song

Overall, however, this was a good flick.  It was kind of cool to see how one of the world’s most addictive on-line presences got its start.  It’s kind of funny, the Mark Zuckerberg character is not very likeable, but you just can’t hate him.  He is emotionally immature, self-centered, egotistical, arrogant… highly intelligent and hard not to kind of like.  He screws over his girlfriend, his best friend, and a group of preppies that are counting on him.  In fact, he appears to only have his interests in mind with almost every decision he makes.  Still, you can’t help but root for the dorky little jerk.  Whether or not the real Mark Zuckerberg is anything like the character played by Jesse Eisenberg, who knows.  Not me, for sure.  I am neither in the same social strata as young billionaire geniuses nor successful Hollywood actors.

I bet that a lot of people who have not seen this movie (or who haven’t gone to a prestigious college in the last few years) will not know that Facebook was started as an ultra-exclusive, Harvard-student-only website.  Quickly, Zuckerberg let it spread to other prestigious universities, and then less prestigious universities, and then, when the true monetary potential of Facebook came into focus… the world.  In the original plans for Facebook, us average folks weren’t included.

I remember a few years ago, I had a recent college graduate as a coworker. He had graduated from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.  I had recently started a Facebook account, and I was talking to him about it.  He made a comment about how “Facebook just isn’t the same since it isn’t exclusively college students anymore.”  I took offense at his statement.  I felt he was saying that us old timers and regular Joes were ruining something that had once been “hip” and “fun”. How dare we reconnect with relatives and old friends.  How dare we stay in contact with people who would have normally faded silently into our pasts.  If I had known then what I know now, I may have said something like, “Yeah, I bet that’s the same thing the preppies at Harvard thought when they started to let a bunch of cornhusker hicks from UNL join Facebook.”  Hahaha… sometimes hindsight makes me feel kind of good.

Watching a good movie should do one of two things:

1. let you escape from reality, or

2. make you think.

The Social Network , for me, did both.  I enjoyed watching the snotty people get what was coming to them.  I enjoyed seeing how Facebook got its slightly-shady start.  As far as the thinking goes, it made me wonder why , in the grand scheme of things, some people are smarter than others, thus giving them an unfair advantage in the ability to come up with cool ideas and make a crapload of money.  Why am I not one of those brilliant people?  I know… I know… anyone can learn anything and you are only limited by your ability to sacrifice and learn and blah blah blah blah… that’s a load of phooey.

**SEE, look at ME, I’m all old using words like PHOOEY, for crying out loud.**

Some people are just naturally smarter than other.  Some people have a definite advantage in the race to success.  Of course, in the case of the movie versionof Mark Zuckerberg, he kind of screwed over a lot of people to get there.  Part of me thinks his sacrifice is not something I could bring myself to do.  The other part of me… the sane, rational part… thinks that for a net worth of that is now probably in the tens of billions of dollars, I may have screwed over a friend or two along the way as well 🙂 But since I ain’t real smart or nothin’, I’ll just keep tryin’ the way I have been tryin’ most my life…

Filthy Rich