Brunch, beer, baseball, and buds

I know a lot of people had a three-day weekend over Memorial Day. I have two jobs, so three-day weekends are a rarity and two-day weekends are a treasure. I ended up with a two-day weekend for the holiday, and my fiance had one full day free. This is the two-job life we live, but we made the best of it by taking a quick night away.

Omaha is roughly two hours from where we live. Neither of us had been to the AAA baseball park there, and when we saw that the Storm Chasers were not only home but also playing the Round Rock Express (the Rangers' AAA team), we decided to go. We bought our game tickets, booked a hotel room, and hoped for nice weather.

We woke around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday morning and were on the road an hour later. After a quick stop for coffee and a light breakfast, we began the trek west. When we arrived in Omaha, our first stop was brunch at The Kitchen Table with my friend, Danielle, and her fiance, David. I had the inside out grilled cheese and Sean had the breakfast burger. I didn't take a photo of any of our food, but it was delicious. I would definitely go back.

Next, Sean and I headed to a local brewery I'd been wanting to check out -- Infusion. A few years ago, I had their vanilla bean blonde at a concert venue and loved it. I knew I needed to find out what else they made. I was not disappointed. They have a great variety of brews -- an amber, a stout, a cherry tart wheat, a pineapple IPA, a dunkel, etc. -- and they were all fantastic. The vanilla bean blonde is probably still my favorite, but their dunkel was one of the best dunkels I've ever had. I also really liked the cherry tart wheat more than I expected to. I was afraid it would have too much tartness (I haven't found my palette for sours yet), but it was delightful. As we talked with the two employees in the brewery and they discovered I worked at a brewery in Des Moines (and they'd had some of our beers), we ended up getting a tour and lots of stickers. I also suspect they gave me a discount on all the beer I purchased because I came home with everything below for far cheaper than I anticipated.

By the way, in that growler is a special mix of their vanilla bean blonde, cherry tart wheat, and pineapple IPA. They call it pineapple upside down cake and it is as delicious as it sounds.

Loaded up on beer, Sean and I went to our hotel to check in so we could relax for a few hours. We arrived at the hotel at 2 p.m. Check-in wasn't officially until 3, but I thought I'd see if we could get in early anyway. No dice, but I wasn't all that surprised. We were told to come back in an hour. So we went to a local sports bar and watched some baseball to kill time. We went back to the hotel around 3:30. They still didn't have a room ready for us and we were told it would be about 10 more minutes. This time I was a little irritated. They offered us something free from the little convenience store, but a soda or candy bar wasn't really going to make this right in my opinion. With a sigh, we just got our bags and tried not to get angry. It was 15 minutes before we got our room assignment, where we promptly flopped on the bed and rested for about an hour.

We headed to Werner Park to meet my college roommate, Jenny, along with her husband, Don, and their daughter, Elizabeth, for some tailgating. Jenny and Don grilled up some brats and burgers. They also had watermelon, fruit, and beers from their favorite local brewery, Lucky Bucket. I had brought some from 515 Brewing for them to sample as well. We had a good time talking and trying each others' favorite beers. We liked Lucky Bucket's Belly Flop (a strawberry blonde) so much, we ended up picking up a six-pack on the way out of town.

The game itself wasn't that exciting for me. I was rooting for the visiting team, and they were not playing very well. They only had one hit for the first half of the game. They tried to rally late in the game, but it was much too late for a full come from behind win. Afterwards, we watched fireworks and chilled in the parking lot until the traffic cleared so we could head to our hotel again.

Monday morning, we slept in a bit, grabbed breakfast, and headed back to Des Moines.

It was a very short trip, but I'm glad we did it. Getting out of town, even just for one night, was a much-needed treat. We definitely want to go back again another weekend to drink more beer, hang out with friends, and maybe even check out their famous Henry Doorly Zoo.

Where's your favorite quick getaway?