Nebraska Discoveries 22: My last trip to Nebraska…for now.

The Historic Fort Crook Suites are on "General's Row" on Offutt AFB.
The Historic Fort Crook Suites are on “General’s Row” on Offutt AFB.

Just before Thanksgiving I took one last trip to Offutt AFB in Nebraska. This time I was signing out of my unit at STRATCOM. The folks in my office took me out for a nice lunch at Sinful Burger, and I even caught one last Omaha-Offutt AMS chapter meeting to see some of my friends from my time with that group in 2008-2010.

I had been traveling to Nebraska 5-6 times per year in 2011, 2012, and 2013 for my reserve work. Dave had received orders from Nebraska to Florida a mere 6 months after I had been hired locally.

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Nebraska Discoveries 21*: The Keystone Trail in Bellevue

* I plan to renumber/redesignate my Nebraska-sightseeing-related blog posts into something more mangeable for search engines. Stay tuned, if you subscribe via RSS you might get inundated with updates. I’m not changing the text of the posts, just the titles and tagging.

The Keystone Trail parallels Papio Creek in Bellevue.

On Friday I took a short run on one of eastern Nebraska’s awesome running trails: The Keystone Trail.  I used to run on this trail a LOT when we were living in Nebraska, and I’ve written previously about the great views it gave us of the Offutt Air Show in 2008.  This is how I did my 10K and 1/2 marathon training when I lived in the area.

From where I’m staying in Bellevue for my reserve work right now, it was about a 1/2 mile run to a trailhead off Capehart Rd.  It was so easy.  So I set my Nike+ for a 5K run and ran out 1.5 miles or so on the trail.  On the return trip, once my Nike+ told me I had run 5K, I stopped to enjoy the views.  I could take some pictures too.

The markers are approximately every tenth of a mile. They are a bit misleading on this marker: the "K" is for "Keystone" and not "kilometer". The numbers posted are miles.

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My New Commuter Life, Part III: Food, Folks and Fun*

*Wait a second, wasn’t that a major fast-food corporation jingle? While I was in Nebraska, I did make some time to visit with my Pokeno girlfriends, have a nice dinner out with Shannon (who took me in at her house when the Offutt Inn was booked for the week), and enjoy a trip to Trader … Read more

My New Commuter Life, Part II: Just Because I Now Live in Florida….

….doesn’t mean I never have to see snow again, right? Or drive in the snow again? (As promised in my previous post, here’s the story of why I’ll never buy a Ford Mustang north of the Mason/Dixon line!) On last weekend’s trip to Omaha, I was fortunate to travel in between major winter weather systems. … Read more

Nebraska Discoveries 19: Offutt Air Show 2010

We’ve done this two times before here and here, but it’s worth discussing again.

It’s late August at Offutt AFB — time for an AIRSHOW!

This year’s airshow lucked out with a last-minute booking of the Thunderbirds after the Coney Island Airshow was cancelled. (Don’t know why, message boards have speculated it was financial). Unfortunate for an entire airshow to be cancelled, but yay for us, right? When the airshow was first announced in mid-July, the F-22 Raptor Demonstration Team was the headliner.

Like the past two years, the aircraft start to roll in around mid-week and we can see the air traffic from throughout my neighborhood as the aerial demo teams start to practice their shows. While the propeller planes and helicopters stay pretty close to the runway, the jets need more maneuvering space and often have to turn around over our neighborhood. Whoo hoo! So we were seeing the Thunderbirds, the F-22 and F-18 several times right from our yard! The kids at school had quite a treat during their recess on Thursday and Friday too 🙂

In 2008 we watched the Thunderbirds from the local bike trail. In 2009 we watched from a local neighborhood that offered a good view. This time, the boys and I watched right there in the middle of the action.

Enjoy some of our experiences from the airshow.

These KC-135s are Nebraska Air National Guard planes from Lincoln
From 2010 08 28 Offutt AFB Airshow
I’d never seen a Global Hawk UAS up close before, after all the times I’d forecast for them….
From 2010 08 28 Offutt AFB Airshow

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The Corn Debate — Starch or Veggie?

Considering I’m in Nebraska, it makes sense that we should take some time to discuss corn here, right? The nickname “Cornhusker” was first adopted by the University of Nebraska football team in 1900. The little farm stands popped up all over the Omaha Metro, as they do every year in mid-July. I’m partial to this … Read more

Nebraska Discoveries 18: Fontenelle Splashground

Today Shannon and I took our boys to this new “splashpark” that opened 2 weeks ago in North Omaha.  What a fun, FREE, way to spend a hot summer afternoon! School starts Monday!

Since the original post this afternoon I’ve had a chance to add more commentary about this place. The City of Omaha has built several of these “Splashgrounds” around the city and they’re a great time for the boys. Papillion has one, but Bellevue has none (hint hint!)

Today the boys spent nearly 3 hours at the park — then the horseflies started attacking and the boys were happy to go. Shannon and I sat under a tree in the shade and had a good old fashioned chatfest.

This particular one was intriguing: there’s this innocent looking post stationed near the entrance to the fenced area — you rub the top of the post (yes, I know what I’m saying here) and that activates the water for 5 minutes.  As long as a kid runs back to the post every 5 minutes or so, the water stays on.  A nice conservation tool.  You can see the post in the 3rd picture here.

From 2010 08 13 Fontenelle Splashground