International Club Takes Spring Break to Omaha

While many students spent the start of Spring Break catching up on sleep, the DSU International Club spent it on the road. On Saturday, March 14, two vans pulled out of a snowy Madison campus and headed south for a three-day, packed itinerary in Omaha, Nebraska.

The trip offered a fast-paced mix of wildlife, fine art, and a few unexpected roadside stops to kick off the mid-semester break.

After arriving in Omaha, the group’s first stop was the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. Consistently ranked as one of the best zoos in the world, the massive 130-acre park gave students a chance to stretch their legs after the drive.

Instead of just walking past standard enclosures, students navigated immersive indoor rainforests and desert domes. The group observed everything from the calculated, quiet movements of the resident gorillas to the sudden, chaotic energy of the bat caves. The aquarium offered a sharp visual shift, with the slow, neon glow of the jellyfish exhibits contrasting against the fast-paced underwater acrobatics of sea lions and penguins.

To get a true sense of the park’s scale, the group took to the air on the Skyfari. The open-air chairlift carried riders directly over the outdoor habitats, offering a unique, top-down perspective of the rhino and cheetah enclosures and a great view of the city skyline.

Sunday brought a massive blizzard to the Omaha area, but the weather didn’t derail the itinerary. The group visited the Joslyn Art Museum. The museum provided a deeply immersive experience, made even better by a live orchestra playing in one of the main halls as students walked through.

With the snow piling up outside, the group spent hours exploring the diverse galleries. The collection spanned centuries, offering a striking contrast between ancient artifacts and thought-provoking modern pieces. It was a culturally rich afternoon that perfectly countered the storm outside.

By Monday morning, the skies had cleared enough for the group to head to the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge, a suspension bridge that stretches across the Missouri River. There, students participated in “Bobbing”—the local tradition of standing directly on the state line, with one foot in Nebraska and the other in Iowa. While exploring the area, they also caught a glimpse of OMAR, the friendly troll statue residing under the bridge.

With the vans pointed back toward South Dakota, the club made one final stop in Sioux City, Iowa, to visit the Sergeant Floyd River Museum. Housed entirely inside a dry-docked riverboat, the museum offered a fun and highly specific look into the area’s navigational history, giving the group one last set of insights before hitting the highway.

The vans arrived back on the DSU campus on Monday evening. It was a short trip, but between the zoo, the orchestra, and the riverboat, it was a weekend well spent—and a great way to reset before tackling the second half of the semester.