Omaha, NE (4)

 We've been in Omaha for four days and we've yet to have a "Runza".  The Runza is the name of both the restaurant and the sandwich it sells and is said to be as Nebraskan as a Cornhusker.    First Catharine the Great invited Germans to colonize and farm areas around the Volga River and Black Sea around 1760.  She promised them certain freedoms and the Germans came.  Fast forward 110 years and a new Czar says forget all that freedom stuff.  This created the German Russians that migrated to Nebraska in the 1880s.  The sandwich came with the German Russian Immigrants all of whom were making some form it.  But, it Sally Everett who took it out of the country kitchens and started selling them from a storefront in 1949.  There are now Runza stores all across Nebraska a few in Iowa and one each in Kansas and Colorado, 85 in all.  Not a real challenge to McDonalds, but we did not find one Nebraskan who did not have a favorite Runza store.  The sandwich itself?  A yeast pocket roll, stuffed with ground beef, sauerkraut, onions and some seasonings.  Not the kind of thing I crave, but when in Nebraska I have to have one.  

Eastern Nebraska is separated from western Iowa by the Missouri River.  But here in Omaha, you can walk to Council Bluffs, Iowa over the Bob Kerry Pedestrian Bridge.  The bridge is well used by the residents of both cities and today Sandy and I joined the crowd.

Sandy with a foot in both states

A very tall piece of art, or something