At some point during the unlimited salad bowls and pasta bowls at Olive Garden, Erik Peterson brought up an idea he had. The new year was shortly upon us, and he had thought that would be a good time to start walking.

Omaha, Nebraska is not a walking town. Our flock would be walking the most infamous street of them all, Dodge St., which runs east/west from the Missouri river, all the way to the crust of Omaha. The downtown was the presumed starting point, and at some point, 90th Street was the set destination.

At our starting time, we were only three (Erik, Samara, Jeff). If the moment is to be exaggerated, we were the founders three, the ones who were willing to get up at the ungodly hour of 9:30 A.M. The ones willing to walk that unwalkable street.

It is always interesting, as anyone who has lived in a walking city can attest to, to see the things which it is impossible to see even by bike. When we crossed over the downtown freeway (I-480), there was a lot of interesting debris. I think that everytime I have crossed over this freeway, I have imagined it being so much cooler, something akin to the drainage runoffs in Los Angeles.

At 31st street and Dodge, we saw the day-care center that advertised Webcam Daycare. Shortly thereafter, at 33rd and Dodge I told Erik and Samara the explanatory anecdote that I always mention when passing the Mexican Consulate.

It was a cold enough day to warrant long coats, and for some gloves, but walking is a cheaper heater. At some point I unzipped my coat.

At 49th street (or so) we met up with Kirsten, our fourth wanderer, who at first said she would just walk with us a little way. We saw the most wonderful tree in someone's yard, but I can't say that I know what kind it was.

Joel called me around the UNO area, across from Memorial Park, at 60th and Dodge. He was in Kansas from a New Years Eve celebration the night before, and was wondering how the walking was going. He also wanted to know whether or not he might make it in time for the end of the walk. This is another important point about walking in Omaha: it would be very hard to estimate how long it would take to walk any given distance because no one really does it.
I also got a leg cramp, but learned from Erik that breathing from the nose is an almost sure-fire cure to this age-old malady.

We passed one of many pseudo-parks in Omaha around 69th street or so, a purely functional plot of land, usually owned by a bank (for an ATM) or a utility company, that is disguised as a recreational mini-park. Had our time there been longer, I would have encouraged use of this park, since this sort of loitering is not encouraged in that sort of location.

72nd and Dodge is usually considered the epicenter of Omaha. Mathematically, it is half of 144th, the far boundary of the town. By this logic, we would be traveling 63% of Omaha by foot.

On reaching 90th street, we celebrated by taking a celebratory picture. Hooray! We also used the bathrooms and drinking fountains at the nearby Walgreen's.

Shortly after reaching the endpoint, and turning around to make the return journey on the north side of the street, Nick joined us with his dog. That made us five humans and one dog.

On the south side, the sidewalk is uncomfortably narrower from 72nd street to about 50th street. This space is further decreased by the existence of annoying trees. We proceeded to fight through the jungle brush, meeting up with Jeff and Bess around 60th street.

At Memorial Park, Erica and Neil joined the pack. I think that Erica and Neil might have skipping, and Jeff and Bess might have been sprinting, but these activities still count as running in my book. The grand total of people at this point is 10 (including the dog, whose name I regret forgetting).

Our last member, Kiley, joined us at 50th street. Though it was not quite the huge, rambling, aimless group of walkers taking back the streets of Omaha, it was a jovial start!

It was getting to be around 3:30 or 4:00 at this point (33rd street), so the sun was taking away its warmth that it had so kindly given us for the journey there. Being in good spirits and with like-minded walkers is still a great heater, but my fingers and toes would not agree.

At around 16th street, Erica and Neil left to find Neil's Dad's car, because they had a movie to catch.

At 5:00 we reached the source. It was also very cold, and the car was very cramped (it is smarter to park your cars at the end of a walk, rather than along the middle, because 6 people to a 5 people car will surely result). I am pretty sure Nick, Kirsten and Nick's dog ended up just walking back.

A long walk (12 miles) tends to take the best out of you, but it was more than worth it. In the future, it would be great to re-try as an experiment, see how many people we could get with more time, more planning.

There is something very radical about a walk without purpose; the longest walks nowadays require a cause, like money or political change or exercise. Walking for its own sake lacks an advocate. Hopefully groups similar to ours might be able to give this sort of event a kick-start.