What’s Up Omaha

Finding time and energy to write about all the things I am doing is so hard when I am constantly in a food coma. Ugh, the struggle is real.

I had friends from back home visit this month and took them to all my usual spots – The Diner for breakfast in the Old Market, Mister Toad’s for the best happy hour patio, Soaring Wings vineyard for wine tasting, Nosh for a late dinner, the Saint Lucia festival for food and music along the river, and so much more.

As with most guests visiting for the first time, they were surprised and impressed by all there was to do in this little gem of a city. They came out here with the intention of convincing me to return home sooner rather than later, but after showing them what’s up in Omaha, they changed their tune and are already planning a return trip! 

This place never runs out of new things to do and this past weekend we tried out the latest downtown addition, Flying Timber. I heard about this new ax throwing bar on the morning radio and was excited to check it out. Side note, people always ask me how I find these activities, but uh there’s no secret trick. I read billboards, read the newspaper, and listen to the radio mostly. Call me old school? 

Anyways, I visited their website (https://www.flyingtimber.com) and made a reservation online, which was super easy to do. We rented a lane for an hour and it was $20/person. The staff was so friendly and excited to see us. They brought us to the back and introduced us to our lane coach, who went over some safety rules and helped us with our technique.

He was assigned to our group for the whole hour and made sure we didn’t accidently chop any body parts off and also politely corrected our form…constantly. It is not as easy as he made it look – a lot goes into throwing that ax and getting it on the target!

We were worried the hour was going to be too long, but it flew by and we had so much fun. I even hit a few bullseyes, and have a video to prove it (Bullseye!). It doesn’t matter how many takes it took, all that matters is that it happened 😉

I’m already excited to go back! I’m hoping I can convince the office to take a field trip here for team building. Well, actually, one coworker seems pretty upset at another coworker who always hits “reply all” so maybe ax throwing isn’t the smartest idea… 

-Leah

Exciting news – I did something in the Omaha area that did not involve food and drinks this weekend! Granted, this activity was to offset a highly indulgent dinner on Friday, but hey…baby steps.

We had another birthday celebration this weekend (I never realized how many Omaha friends I had born in a month span), but this one did not involve any form of pedaling – thank goodness. Rather, I crashed guys night in Lincoln and met up with the group at Rodizio, a Brazilian steakhouse with all you can eat meat. Much more my style.

We ate ourselves into a food coma, went out for a few drinks, and then went back to the hotel feeling quite gluttonous.

In an attempt to undo some of the previous night’s damage, we decided to make a detour on the ride home to hike around and be one with nature at the Platte River State Park. It is conveniently located in Louisville, which is about halfway between Lincoln and Omaha – the perfect pit-stop!

We opted for the day pass option ($6) and asked for directions to The Falls. The park offers a ton of activities such as hiking, biking, archery, canoeing, and even lodging…in teepees (totally going back for that!). It was a cloudy day and we were kind of tired, so we kept it simple and walked some of the trails.

This is the most “nature-y” place I have been to out here – lots of greenery, wooden bridges crossing over creeks, birds chirping, and all that other good stuff. We took “the trail to the falls” and surprisingly, there was hardly anyone else out there. We passed a few families, but that was about it. It was nice to be in the quiet and have a break from our usual routine of buzzing around doing a million social activities. 

We made our way to the falls, which for expectation management are pretty small, and enjoyed the sound of the water. Until some kids ruined the moment by stomping up the trail yelling that they didn’t want to wear their shoes anymore. Ugh, buzzkill.

We snapped some photos and decided we liked the place enough to come back for a longer visit in the future. But until then, we had to get back to Omaha for our double date night – dinner at El Rancho and the new Avengers movie!

To check out this park, or any of the other state parks, visit: http://outdoornebraska.gov

-Leah

PS – while this mini waterfall was neat, if you’re looking for the true waterfall experience, you should check out Smith Falls in Valentine, NE!

For everyone who thinks Nebraska is all flatland, I challenge you to do the pint-a-gon tap room bike ride where you will suddenly become very aware of every incline and/or hill in this state. And by in this state, I mean in Papillion where the 9-mile event takes place.

My friend, Olivia, was celebrating her birthday this past weekend and unfortunately for me, she is quite the athletic lady. This meant she wanted to kick off the weekend by getting a group of us together for a bike ride on Saturday morning.

Ugh, a Saturday morning bike ride the day after flying back from a work trip?! Oh, but wait, the bike ride stops at 6 breweries? Ok, I’m interested and suddenly feeling very sporty.

So, Saturday morning I’m feeling pretty cool in my Nikes and workout clothes and my bag filled with water bottles, a bike lock, helmet, and sunscreen – I looked the part. But then I had to get the bike loaded onto the car rack and let’s just say, anyone who passed me on the highway would immediately know I was a phony because that thing looked so jacked up and there were strings blowing the breeze like crazy. Ah well, we made it with no incident.

Each month the ride is hosted by a different brewery or distillery, so for May we started things off at Patriarch Distillery. Registration starts at 10am and the ride starts at 11am. Although, registration is a very loose term here. By registration they mean make some friends, grab a drink, and get a quick overview of the route from the ride coordinator.

Of course, no one remembered the route and we got so distracted organizing our group of about 15 that we were the last to leave. No worries, we are a smart bunch and figured things out. The sun was shining, we had the speakers blasting, life was good. And then our friend got a flat about half a mile in. DOH.

I won’t bore you with the details, but the bike situation was resolved and we made it to the first brewery, Pint Nine. This leg of the ride was only about a mile and it was flat so I was jazzed up and feeling confident. We grabbed a beer, played a few rounds of UNO, a few rounds of cornhole, and then made our way to the next stop…directly next store. Dang, this bike ride is a breeze!

This one was called Kros Strain and my friend convinced me it was actually a CrossFit gym/brewery because it sounds like “cross train”. I’m such a sucker. Anyhoo, they had some good brews here and they also had a food truck outside for snacks, The Churro Truck.

3 stops down and 3 to go. I was given fair warning that the 1.5 mile ride to the next one would have a hill, but given that I crushed these first 2 legs, I wasn’t sweating it. Until I was sweating it, a lot. Literally.

I made it about halfway up the hill before having to hop off and walk the rest. Of course, right as I’m nearing the top and looking less than ideal, I bump into a coworker who comments he didn’t know I was so into cycling. Aha! The outfit is working!

Anyways, so we stopped at Nebraska Brewing company where I spent most of my time playing giant Jenga and losing at cornhole. Good times. Then we had a 2-mile ride to Infusion Brewery where we had some snacks and snapped some group pics. What a lovely looking bunch, eh!

Finally, we made our way to Liquid Sunshine Tap Room. This last leg took a lot out of me. I was hot, it was on an incline, we had been out for 4+ hours.  I was on the struggle bus and called it quits at this stop. I pretended like I lost track of time and had to get going back.

“I should probably just grab an Uber from here back to my car and then I’ll come back for the bike….ya know, because I need to get going on those errands for the BBQ tonight.” It was half true! I did have BBQ errands to run…they just weren’t as urgent as I made them seem. Don’t judge me. 

All in all, I had a blast, even if it was challenging for me at times. It was fun to explore a new part of town and visit some cool breweries along the way! The next ride is on June 9^th and will be hosted by Nebraska Brewing Company if you’re feeling adventurous and want to give it a go!

-Leah

Hot dang, travelling really makes keeping up with the blog tough! I came back from Jamaica to find out I was headed to a conference in Cocoa Beach the following week, so I haven’t spent nearly as much time as I wanted to on here. I know, poor me. But! In between trips I managed to fit in two birthday celebrations, both of which involved biking for beer – priorities, eh!

First up was the Omaha Patio Ride (AKA the pedal tavern AKA a bar on wheels AKA 16 grown adults decked out in glow sticks, blasting 90’s music, enjoying some drinks, and making their way…slowly…around the Old Market).

The Omaha Patio Ride is such a gem and so much fun for group outings – in our case, we were celebrating a 30^th birthday. We reserved the ride for 9pm on a Saturday and were excited to start planning for our 2-hour adventure on wheels.

The ride is BYOB, so naturally the first thing was to figure out who was making the beer run – duh. Next, we decided that since it was a night ride, we should go with a glow stick theme – glow bracelets, glow glasses, glow balloons…basically, if it glowed, we had it. Obnoxious? Yes. Worth it? Also, yes. Finally, we put together a playlist that made other people wish they were hanging out with us 😉

We assembled at The Stadium Club to pass out the party hats, sign our waivers, and eventually made our way onto the ride. While the ride fits 16 people, not everyone has to pedal (thank g)– there is bench seating in the back, a few seats along the side, and space for 1 or 2 people to stand in the middle and bartend that all do not require pedaling. Obviously, given my lack of endurance, I volunteered to be the bartender (and DJ).

“Pump Up The Jam” was blasting and we were on our merry way! We made stops at Billy Frogs, T Henry’s, and The Tavern – and fun fact, because we were a part of the group, we got drink specials at each stop! Although, to be honest, we were having more fun pedaling around outside than we did at the bars. 

We were feeling the vibe of the night and asked the driver if we could make one more loop around the block before wrapping things up…and then immediately regretted it. Because it was uphill and pedaling was getting hard (or so I heard). No worries though, our dear friend Lambert hopped out and pushed us along from the back until we made it back to the end point. Thanks, Lambert, you da best!

Good times were had by all! Except maybe for the birthday boy who had a case of mono coming in hot and felt like borderline death most of the night. Woops…

Well, shoot. This was way more long winded than I anticipated and I need to get cracking on some laundry, so I’ll leave you all in suspense about what my other biking and beer birthday outing entailed!

https://www.omahapatioride.com/ 

-Leah

I told my friend I was going to Junkstock this past weekend and he asked me why I was going to a Gentlemen’s club on a Saturday morning. Fail.

In case anyone else came across “Junkstock” in their search for things to do in the Omaha area and had some questions, I can assure you this is a family friendly and fully clothed event.

In fact, Junkstock is quickly becoming known as one of the countries best vintage festivals. Junkstock began in 2012 as a small event with a handful of vendors, but over the years it has expanded to become a semi-annual, three-day event at Sycamore Farms with 200+ vendors, 20+ food trucks, and a stage for local musicians to show us what they got…talk about success!

We paid our $10 cash only entrance fee and wandered the crowd trying to find our friends. It turns out saying, “I’m standing near the wooden pallet vendor” or “there is a guy selling artisan chocolates to my left” doesn’t really narrow things down at an event like this, woops. Thank goodness for the pony ride station and thank goodness there was only one.

Before getting too carried away in our hunt for all things dusty, rusty, and adorable, we obviously had to stop and snap a picture at this totally staged photo-op – an instagrammer’s dream!

Ok, now that we got that out of the way, time to focus! You really learn a lot about your friends by observing which vendors they are drawn to. I won’t name names, but I had no idea my friend would be so into tea cups glued together to form a bird bath – fascinating! This is truly the one-of-a-kind type of junk people flock to the event for.

We strolled past locally made cutting boards, pallet wood everything, homemade soaps, beef jerky out the wazoo, carefully crafted greeting cards, more home décor than we could fathom, and so much more!

I’m a total sucker and/or a Basic B because I was loving all the weathered pallet wood décor – I couldn’t resist! I strolled down Penny Lane (not kidding) and bought an old teal ladder to use as a blanket holder in my living room. So stinkin’ cute!

Eventually all our strolling made us hungry, so we wandered over to the food truck area, grabbed a bite, and hung out around one of the fire pits they had setup. It took 3 days to wash the campfire smell out of my hair, but totally worth it.

This was such a fun day with friends and I am already looking forward to its return this September!

Junkstock.com

-Leah