Botanical Gardens and Shopping

Another cold, windy, cloudy day - not the weather we  hoped for! This morning we went to the Lauritzen Gardens which is Omaha's botanical gardens. The garden was started in 1982 and today covers over 100 acres with a new, very large conservatory. There were a lot of things inside so we didn't have to walk to much outside in the cold wind. 

There were several tulip beds that were beautiful. The tulips are such a beautiful flower and their life is so short when in bloom. 

More than 30 brilliantly-colored glass sculptures, created and curated for Lauritzen Gardens by nationally-recognized kiln-formed glass artist Craig Mitchell Smith punctuate the landscapes of the Marjorie K. Daugherty Conservatory and the floral display hall. His unique and unparalleled technique of cutting colorful sheets of glass in the shapes of brush strokes and using his kiln as a canvas is similar to the way a painter works with paint. He lays out shards of glass like paint on a canvas and fires these pieces until they melt and fuse into a beautiful form. Smith evaluates every flat flower, petal by petal, and adapts the glass to its finished three-dimensional shape. ABOVE is the back of some sunflowers.

The front of one of the glass sunflowers. 

Another one of the glass flowers. His technique is definitely different from glass I have seen in other exhibits. 

This water lily is real.  

We had lunch at the gardens in a really nice little cafe and then headed for the Century-Link Arena for the Berkshire-Hathaway Exhibit event. It is basically a huge trade show make up of companies that is owned by Berkshire Hathaway. It was just overwhelming with so much to see and so many people! 

Besides getting our picture taken, I ended up with 2 big shopping bags of stuff. There was stuff from Fruit-of-the-Loom, a rubber ducky of Warren Buffet holding a gecko, candy from See's, some stuff from Pampered Chef, gardening gloves from Wells Lamont, a Dilly Bar from Dairy Queen and a fresh water pearl necklace from Borsheim's Jewelry Store, Prices were really reduced on some items. We saw stuff from BNSF railroad, Justin Boots, and the aisles went on and on. We could have bought casual shoes or signed up to lease a jet plane. See's had 16 cash registers to handle the crowds as did Fruit-of-the Loom. The event was wonderfully organized and smooth running. However, our brains were on overload after 2.5 hours and we staggered out with our bags. 

In the morning, we catch a shuttle at 6 a.m. which takes us to the arena where we will stand outside in line until the doors open at 7 a.m. You have to be there by 4 a.m. if you drive to get a parking space. There is a 100% chance of rain in the morning but we have our umbrellas and ponchos ready. We only plan on staying about half a day - not the whole day. We skipped a cocktail reception tonight at the jewelry store and will probably skip the BBQ at Nebraska Furniture Mart tomorrow night. So far it has met or exceeded our expectations.