Well I’m finally back from preparing for, spending three days during and recovering from the recent wonderful Memorial Day weekend. My husband and I dropped off our son with his sister’s family for a few days and made a quick sojourn to Omaha, Nebraska. It was my first trip to Omaha, so it was fun scoping the sites and seeing a few things, even if the zoo wasn’t one of them. This was an anniversary weekend, so the zoo will be a whole other adventure.

Although it was a good vacation (even if most of the antique stores were closed), one of the highlights of our journey was the return trip surprise in Auburn, Nebraska, along Hwy 75. As we drove through this quaint little town with eyes peeled for antiques, we came upon the Nemaha County Veterans Memorial at Legion Memorial Park decked out in true patriotic fashion. The sidewalk in front of the memorial park was lined with American flags, and not some dinky little decorative banners, these were the full-sized, you-can’t-miss-me variety. Of course, this beautiful double row of flags flying in the wind caught our eye, so we circled around to take a closer look.

That is when we realized there was a whole beautiful monument to fallen troops putting on it’s best-dressed self befitting this Memorial Day of remembrance. As we walked through the rows of flags, past a military tank, under the park entrance and up to the beautiful carvings and rows of names, we were truly in awe of this beautiful tribute to all the branches of military smack dab in the middle of this tiny little Omaha town. Our hearts were moved as we paid our respects to just a few of the valiant men and women who died to protect our country, and we couldn’t help but feel lucky that we had stumbled upon this special tribute on such a reverent day.

So if you ever find yourself in Southeast Nebraska on Memorial Day, count yourself lucky and make the trip to Auburn (at the intersection of Hwys 75 and 136) for just a few minutes of remembrance and thanks. I promise you will be proud to be an American and so glad you made the trip.