Day 33: Omaha

Posted by: Arin

The other day I asked what a better way to start a day is than pan dulce. Turns out it's homemade cinnamon rolls and blueberry pancakes. Pam is just a master chef and everything she makes in unbelievable.

Our day in Omaha was awesome because we spent it with a tour guide. Layne let Scott drive us around Omaha in his Volkswagen Thing, which was awesome.

First stop was the skatepark at Seymour Smith park. That place was pretty cool, although it could have been designed with a little better flow in mind. It was fun watching Scott progress though. When we got there he couldn't even make one turn on a quarter pipe and by the end he could make a few in a row. 

The next stop was Omaha Bicycle Co in the Benson area of town. We ended hanging out for a long time with Sarah (the owner) and Vince (the mechanic), talking about bikes and touring. They even had a little coffee shop in the store! It was probably the most down-to-earth boutique shop I've ever been to, and my favorite shop as well. Up in the rafters I spotted a Bontrager Privateer in the same year as the one I own. 

From there we drove to the downtown area to walk and skate around. By then it was around 3pm, so we were pretty hungry. We decided to stop at Zio's Pizza, where we got a huge pizza loaded with veggies. Just a couple blocks from there was a man-made sunken like kind of thing. It had this big metal slide that kids were playing on, but we ended up having a lot of fun in an area with a bunch of stairs where we could skate and jump around. 

Scott's house wasn't too far from there, so we drove over to hang out and drink a beer or two before heading out on bikes. He's got a sweet place. The bottom floor is a workshop for a community garden and he has the whole upstairs to himself. From his balcony you can see the whole garden, where people can rent out their own raised boxes. 

We brought the bikes downstairs to ride to Memorial Park. While we down there we met some of his neighbors (Ricky and Allie) who decided to come along with us. Here's the coolest part though: Brad and I were riding a tandem mountain bike brazed by Tom Ritchey himself. If was probably one of the most beautiful bikes I have ever seen, and also both of our first times on a tandem. We took a few minutes riding around the street to get used to it before heading out. We got to the park, and just as Scott promised, there were some awesome trees to climb. I climbed the highest I've ever been in a tree!

Allie and Ricky headed home, while we rode back to Benson to grab another beer before riding back to Scott's. We then made the drive back to his parents' house to return the Thing and go to bed after munching on some homemade bread. It was a good day, I love Omaha!