Ah, Omaha.
So many people asked me why I wanted to go here. This includes my Uber driver from the airport, the nice guy who checked me into my room, and my former manager who grew up in Omaha.
Plain and simple, I wanted to get closer to having slept in all 50 states. Much like most of the stops on this trip, this was the perfect time to do this. I am not on vacation. I am simply traveling around and working remote.
Omaha was the sole reason I packed gloves. It was supposed to be in the 30s here. Imagine me arriving and finding it 70 degrees outside. What the hell Omaha.
I stayed at 402 hotel. Poor 402 hotel. I arrived and walked into the lobby, immediately hit with beautiful cool air from the air conditioning, wiping away the 70 degree weather I had not been expecting. The lobby was cool, clean and wonderful. That’s where it all ended.
I am told the hotel had recently had a flood and the elevators aren’t working. Cool. Came to figure out that the flood had been months ago and there is zero action being taken to fix the elevators. Honestly, I am not even convinced they were really broken as I could swear I could hear elevator dinging from my room a couple of times.
First bonus: The room smelled like pee. And would not cool down. I ended up taking the air conditioner filter out and wiping off the thickest layer of filth. Then I sprayed it with my “I am traveling for 30 days in a carry on sized bag” Febreeze. Killed two birds with one stone. Cool air, no pee.
And the view:
Second bonus: Harrahs has a hotel/casino here. Harrahs Council Bluffs. I checked online and my stay would be comped. But even though it is in walking distance of my hotel*, it is across the state line in Iowa. I have already slept in Iowa.
*Okay maybe not traditional walking distance, although I did walk to it from my hotel. It took about an hour.
In retrospect, I could have split the stay between Pee Hotel and Harrahs, but I hadn’t initially been planning to be here as many days as I was. That only happened because of the whole “Amtrak stranded me in New Orleans” fiasco. And also, I wasn’t expecting Pee Hotel.
WHAT.
EH.
VER.
Omaha felt weird. Like really weird. I kept walking around to do things like get food or cigarettes and it just felt completely barren. Zero people. I mean, I get it. This is Nebraska and everyone has a car and no one is walking to places. But it just felt weird. Kind of like when the pandemic started and no one was outside.
When I would go outside to smoke, there were always people just sitting in their cars in the parking lot. I found that odd. The hotel was dog friendly so I got to see some dogs but I got to pet zero. I did witness a car full of more crap than would fill a mansion, and a woman outside of it, laying on the ground and crying hysterically. I would do the same if I owned that much stuff.
I worked from my room during the day and didn’t do much on the weekend until Friday after work. This was the night I walked to Harrahs, going across the Bob Kerrey pedestrian bridge. I crossed into Iowa on this bridge. It was pretty cool. If I lived here, I would do this every night. And also I would gamble every night because there doesn’t seem to be much else to do in Omaha.
Unlike Harrahs in New Orleans, you were not required to show proof of vaccination. You also were not required to wear a mask. Also unlike New Orleans, you could smoke inside.
The casino felt really weird. The ceilings were low. They also have those self serve beverage stations like Harrahs in Baltimore.
I found a Cleopatra Keno machine that loved me and I loved her back. I played for awhile, stopped for dinner and played some more.
I decided to cash out and get out when I was even at $300, which so happens to be the exact amount I brought with me. Score!
I took an Uber back to the Pee Hotel. The driver told me I didn’t need to wear a mask. I have gotten somewhat used to being in cities where masks are not mandated, but in an Uber? This just felt so foreign.
Back at the Pee Hotel, I did laundry. I appreciate how often I got to do laundry on this trip. I get that a 6000 hotel room in Vegas cannot provide self service washers and dryers. But I wish some of the smaller ones had them. I think they only hotels I have done laundry in in Las Vegas are Longhorn and Platinum.
Despite this somehow being the longest stay of my trip (why?) I don’t really have much to say. It is Omaha for fuck’s sake.
When it came time to leave, I had an Uber driver who was from Tajikistan. That was all kinds of exciting to me. Imagine living in Tajikistan and ending up in fucking Omaha? I asked him WHY OH WHY OMAHA. He said he has a cousin who lives here. I am so sorry.
Waiting for the train to Denver, a man comes into the waiting room and asks all of us in the waiting room if he can borrow a mask. No, no you cannot.
I had cheated on my USA Railpass and booked another sleeper bed. This one did not have a toilet touching my bed. The roomette felt smaller. I didn’t sleep as well as I had on the toilet train. I could not get the room to cool down at all.
We got to Denver at 7:00 AM, which is where I will pick up at in my next post…