So. I’ve got a two day, one night trip to Omaha next Tuesday into Wednesday. 2nd and 3rd if you’re counting.
What to do?
Any Dopers to meet for a drink?
OMAHA? Well, they oughta know what to do with them hogs out there fer shure.
If you like zoos, Omaha has a really good one.
Mercy sakes.
I was told by a cow-worker about the zoo. Who knows…
Fucking comments like this chap my ass. Omaha is a major city that looks like this.
Go and have a thick Porterhouse steak made from corn-fed Nebraska beef so well-marbled that it would give your cardiologist a heart attack.
Seriously, one of the best steaks I ever ate came from Nebraska.
Yeah. That much was a gimme, but thanks!
This time of year, there is always minor league baseball. See the future KC Royals. Day game, Tuesday noon, vs. Iowa Cubs.
You know what chaps my ass? The fact that I didn’t make that joke first. 
Here’s a better picture.
Omaha, Omaha! Twenty-two, HUT!
Luger: Where were you born, Yamana?
Yamana: Omaha
Luger: We got a town in the US with the same name.
The Old Market area has restaurants, shops, pubs etc.
Across the river (which you might enjoy driving around the river parks) in Council Bluffs Iowa is the Union Pacific Railroad Museum. They have the only remaining items from the funeral car “United States” that took Abraham Lincoln’s body from Washington DC to Springfield. The car was built as the equivalent to Air Force One for its day, but its only use was for that one trip. UP ended up owning the car, relegated to a work car and then lost in a fire in Minnesota. Their museum displays the silver service and furniture removed from the car when the UP obtained it. So you can see stuff that was made for Lincoln to use but never got the chance to.
Also high above the river on I-80 is Lauritzen Gardens and the Omaha Botanical Gardens, which I’m sure is lovely this time of year. Adjacent are the largest diesel locomotive AND the largest steam locomotive ever made. They’re crazy big when you stand next to them.
Thank you!
-an actual Omahan 
Although you should have a good steak in Omaha, do not buy from Omaha Steaks Co. Mediocre product. (When I travelled there they had a kiosk at the airport to sell you packs of steaks to take home)
That one time I was in Omaha I had very little free time and but was able to briefly enjoy that neighborhood (it was winter and *&^%$ freezing and windy so it was run-from-bar-to-bar-quickly). And yes, it’s a perfectly fine major midwestern city.
Council Bluffs also has a lot of casinos.
We spend a weekend in Omaha every year for the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, but don’t get to see much of it other than 801 Chophouse for dinner and the inside of the Century Link Center. 801 Chophouse is good though.
Chris Thiele wrote and performed a song about Omaha and Peyton Manning’s strange fascination for the word.
Omaha’s OK, but aside from the zoo (very decent) and the botanical garden (not in the same class as those in other larger Midwestern cities such as St. Louis, but still very enjoyable), most of the best things to do in the area are outside Omaha itself. The UP Rail museum recently was named one of the top three rail museums in the US and is well worth visiting. Some of the small local towns have shopping districts and festivals that are a lot of fun, such as the annual Nebraska City Apple Festival, which takes over pretty much the entire town for a weekend.
I would recommend the Old Market, but one of the most interesting and historical buildings in it had a major fire last winter, and was - as I understand it - gutted. It will be a long time before the several small shops and restaurants that were in it return, if ever. (If this has changed I will be delighted to hear it.) The Old Market area is quite small - only about two blocks by two blocks - and that made a major dent. You can do the entire thing in an afternoon easily if you avoid the obviously touristy stuff and the chain stores.