Killing time - Day 60: Bellevue to Omaha, NE

I left the registration booth at 6:30 AM without incident, and spent about an hour and a half using their free showers for myself and my laundry. I got onto a library's wifi, discovered I was basically in Omaha, and decided to visit the city proper.

I found a coffee shop on the edge of the Old Market area, and they said I could stay there as long as I wanted. So I did. The shop become my HQ for the day, from which I periodically set out to try nearby breweries. I caught up on my blog a little, charged everything I owned to max, and generally did what I could to abuse their hospitality.

Outside of the coffee shop, I spent most of my time at Brickway Brewery. I spent about an hour chatting with a woman about her travels and my own, met another cross-country cyclist on his way to RAGBRAI, and apparently just missed Deanna and Sonia by about five minutes as if this were somehow the only bar in town. The beers were good, especially their Epic Stout, but I'm pretty sure nobody wants more detailed reviews.

I stayed in the coffee shop until they closed at 10 PM. I stayed out front until 11 PM. Finally, I left for Glenwood where RAGBRAI starts, and promptly got stopped trying to cross a pedestrian bridge. A small crowd had gathered part of the way up, so I rang my bell to try and get through. Then someone informed me that there was a jumper on the bridge, and snidely added "Thanks for being respectful". I'm not sure how I was supposed to know that was what was going on. I assumed there was music in the park down below or something, since people had gathered there too. Also, is it any more respectful to ogle at a suicidal person? I figured this probably wasn't the time to point that out. I napped for a bit in the park below, near enough so that I could hear when the cops drove away. When they left, one cop apologized for the delay and explained there was just a super rare Pokemon that they had to catch up there.

I made it across the bridge, bumbled my way through the park on the other side, talked with a homeless dude and considered sleeping there, decided against it, and emerged into a Harrah's parking lot. This was kind of surreal to me. Coming from Sacramento, I had grown up under the unreasonable assumption that Nevada was the only place where Harrah's existed. Some big event was just getting out, so I made my way through snarled traffic until emerging into Council Bluffs proper. Eventually I found another rail-trail, found a wide spot that seemed kind of hidden, and fell asleep.


The only pictures I took: abusing the ability to charge devices and a beard update.