Days 31-32: Gibbon to Omaha

Posted by: Arin

After a fiasco like the day before, things were bound to turn our way eventually (and turn they did!).

Really though, what better way is there to start your day than at a Mexican bakery? Brad and I had seen a Mexican restaurant the day before while looking for the park. It had a little hand painted sign at the top of the building that said "RosyChuy panadería y tortillería" and we knew that we had to go back there. We got to the restaurant around noon. I walked in and asked them if they had any pan dulce. The guy walks into the other room and comes back with a huge rack straight from the oven. They had just finished making them, so we got three each. What timing! It was probably the best pan dulce I've ever eaten.

After devouring all of them and deeming this a legit Mexican restaurant, we went back in for burritos. We finally left around 2:30 and we had a tailwind! By 5:30 we had already ridden about 50 miles and stopped in Kearney to get food for dinner. A guy at the grocery store actually offered for us to stay at his apartment, but we wanted to keep riding so we continued on. We made it a little past Central City and decided it was time to make camp. 

Once again, we found a spot under a bridge going over the Platte River. We just couldn't seem to get away from it, but I wasn't complaining. We set up camp, made some dinner, and went to bed early, preparing ourselves for the 105 miles in between our camp and Omaha.

Our camp was just a couple miles down highway 92 from highway 30, and we expected the day to be flat just like every other day in Nebraska had been. That was wrong, as we ended up going up and down hill after hill. I wasn't feeling too good in the morning, but we stopped to stretch and eat about 20 miles in and that did the trick. We were flying down the road. Around 2:30 we had been riding for just over three hours (including the break) and we had already covered 55 miles. I called Layne, a guy who we didn't know at all but was a friend of a friend of a friend, to tell him that we were about 50 miles out of Omaha and that we'd be there around six or seven.

Here's a funny story: I put up a Facebook status update asking if anyone had anywhere to stay in Omaha. A friend named Addison sent me a message letting me know his coworker's friend (or something) lives there and that we could stay at his house. Awesome! I got Layne's number and we had a place to go. I need to buy Addison a beer for that.

We left from our little break a little after 3:00, and what we thought was going to be 50 more miles actually turned out to be only 35. We got to his house by 5:00. Of course no one was there, they weren't expecting us for another hour or two. I gave Layne a call and his wife Pam answered. Now this is probably one of the greatest phone conversations I have ever had. She was so stoked to hear from us! After I told her we were there, she told us to go on in and shower, eat, do whatever. What hospitality. They were going to be back in 30 minutes, so Brad and I immediately hopped in the showers.

After I got out, I helped myself to an apple an an orange before I noticed the surround sound stereo. After looking through some CDs I found a Talking Heads album and put it on. I hung out for a while in the kitchen area before Layne and Pam got home.

Now let me tell you, these are probably the nicest people it have ever met in my life. Right off the bat they were telling us about their kids, showing us bikes, all while Pam was somehow covertly cooking us the most amazing meal of the trip so far. If you don't know me, pizza and cookies are the way to my heart and that's exactly what we had for dinner. Just look at this pizza.

Actually, the pizza turned a Cheeseboard recipe. If you haven't been to Cheeseboard or Ariz Mendi in the Bay Area, you're missing out on the best pizza in the world. Brad used to live in San Francisco and every time I visited we would eat at Ariz Mendi almost every day. We finished dinner and their son Scott came over. I then proceeded to get schooled in ping pong before getting to sleep in an actual bed! What an amazing welcome to Omaha.