Cheyenne to Omaha

Pilot and co-pilot.

In our case co-piloting involves reminding the other person not to fall asleep at the wheel.  Otherwise it's just east, east, east...

And here's Nebraska.  We went through longitudinally.  Just so you know, that's not the shortest way through the state.  

Occasionally we stop, wake the kids and force them and ourselves out of the car so that none of us develop DVTs.
But mostly we just drive.  And drive.  And drive.  And remind ourselves that we did want to do this, right?  Oh yes. But probably we should have brought more CDs along.

Ultimate destination: Omaha.  That is to say, Amato's in Omaha.  Yeah, there's a story there.
                               

After the dearth of interesting dining possibilities in Wyoming, we were happy to discover a plethora of choices in Omaha of all unexpected places.  We settled on Amato's, based on Guy Fieri's feature on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and the fact that the owner makes, not only his own sausage  but also his own ricotta cheese on site.  Drool.  Since we arrived early in the evening, we were the only guests in the restaurant so we got to sit down with Sam Amato who shared his photo album and stories about shooting the piece for the show.  Tomorrow morning we go back for the ricotta pancakes!

                             
In the meantime we go back to the hotel and swim in their awesome indoor pool (necessary when it's 15 degrees outside).
Also, they had a washer and dryer (necessary when you've been living out of a suitcase for six days).

Salt Lake City to Cheyenne

I've driven this stretch of I-80 more times than anyone who is not a long-haul trucker should admit to.  So I knew what to expect but it's fun seeing it through the eyes of Mihai and the boys.  

Yes, there's a lot of space in this country (but not much else)

However, what this stretch of I-80 lacks in dining options of any kind it makes up for in scenery such as the following:

This is all from out the car window because clearly it was freezing.  Imagine what we might have seen if we had taken an exit and gone exploring (and imagine how pathetic our frozen little bodies would look when they were discovered in the spring thaw by some poor hapless hiker...)

And it's all beautiful, right?  And two hours of it produces this effect:

Other than a few patches of heavy snow blowing across an ice-covered road, it was a rather uneventful (but looong) drive to our destination: Cheyenne.

At the Old West Museum in Cheyenne (really, that's its name, I didn't make it up to be cute)

One of the joys of parenthood is forcing your children into dorky situations, photographing them and then distributing said photos as far and wide as possible.

This photo begins and ends the entertainment section of "Discover Cheyenne, Wyoming", unless as entertainment you count the 30 minutes spent driving around downtown (7 square blocks) in search of the restaurants that you were told could be found there.  We discovered that restaurant can be widely defined: Arby's and Carl's Jr. qualify for this designation in Cheyenne, as does the unlikely named "Dynasty Gourmet Chinese and Taco Bar" which was unfortunately closed due to demolition.