Wedding Time in Nebraska

In early September I went to the wedding of an old friend of mine who I first met at Reading. Jerilyn was one of the Oklahoma students who studied at Reading, so when we reversed the exchange and went to Oklahoma she was there to look after us (and make many many many trips to Walmart to buy all the things we needed)!

Jerilyn and I in Oklahoma City in 2005!

I arrived Friday and after a 3 hour drive across Nebraska (yes, there is a lot of corn) spent a couple of hours hanging out with Jerilyn and some of her friends and family. Saturday morning I decided to check out all the activities Kearney, Nebraska had to offer, starting with the Yanney Heritage Park and the view from the tower. It was going to be a hot weekend (in the 90s F) so I wanted to get my outside activity in the morning. The park was nice, with a big pond and I spent a while watching the swans and cygnets and trying to take good pictures with me new camera.

View from the park tower

Sundial in the park

Kearney is the Sandhill Crane capital apparently!

Swans in action

Got to have a corn close up!

After the park I went to the Great Platter River Road Archway - a museum/historical center built as a bridge over I-80. It was quite interesting learning all about the Oregon trail, 49ers trail and Mormon trail that all went through Kearney - I didn't know a lot about it so I came out considerably more educated than I went in. It was a bit cheesy, but enjoyable!

The archway! That sun was hot...

I enjoyed this quote in particular

Flowers outside the archway

After a quick trip to downtown Kearney - which has all brick roads (and a nice mural on one building) it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for the wedding!

Mural in downtown

The wedding was at Jerilyn's home church which was very pretty. I'm still not used to American churches (which are almost all modern buildings) compared to the old churches in the UK, but this was a nice one with stained glass windows so it felt a little older!

Congratulations Jerilyn and Travis!

 After the wedding I headed back to the conference center next to my hotel for the reception. It was a fabulous wedding and great to catch up with old friends from Oklahoma that I hadn't seen in many years. We ate, drank, danced and had fun all night. My legs were feeling those high heels the next day!!

This was a delicious cake!

Jerilyn and I in Kearney, Nebraska in 2013!

Sunday morning I was up and driving through the fog at 9am to get back to Omaha for my flight home.  It took a little longer than expected to get home - flights with broken radars and waiting on standby on the last flight of the night, but I made it in the end! It was a wonderful weekend and my first trip to Nebraska was a good one.

Secret Caverns

On labor day we headed west for a day trip to Secret Caverns and Ommegang Brewery. I'll make this picture heavy and word light! Secret Cavern is near to Howe Caverns, which we visited about this time two years ago (blog here). We had seen the signs for Secret Caverns and the underground waterfall but didn't visit that day - it only took 2 years to get back there!

After a few minutes waiting for the tour to start and playing old school video games, we headed down the stairs to the caverns (no elevator here).

Arcade games are serious business you know

The cavern wasn't as large as Howe but it was an enjoyable walk through the caves to the waterfall at the end. Being smaller it was also less busy and commercial, which was nice. I have to point out that I don't know how to take good "i'm in a cave" pictures with my new camera, so the pics don't do it justice!

Follow the path...

... and watch your head

Reflections

The huge underground waterfall at the end was great, and was all lit up (they did turn all the lights out which was a little creepy).

The waterfall

Pictures are hard in a cave and don't don it justice!

After climbing back up the stairs we headed out to Copperstown to the Ommegang brewery for some beer and food. The tasting was great and informative and they were releasing the new Game of Thrones beer so there was a lot going on. The food was also delicious. Highly recommend a visit if you like good beer and belgian style food!

Lake George Swim

I really will make this one quick this time! As a birthday present to myself I signed up for a 2.5 km open water swim in Lake George. We stayed close by on Friday night, ate lots of pasta at the pre swim dinner and headed down to the beach at Hague for the swim early (~6.45) on Saturday morning.

Oh yeah and this was the first real outing with the new SLR camera I got for my birthday!!

Representing!

It was chilly in the morning but clear blue skies and it actually made the 72F water feel warmer. After a brief delay, I head in to the water, lined up (it was a standing water start) and we were off!

Getting in for the first time

The start - I'm in there somewhere

Headed out - can't complain about the view!

The water felt ok and there were about 60 people in the race so it started a little rough, but nothing I can't handle. After a few minutes I had some space - I thought I was near the front but wasn't quite sure. I felt good so I just tried to keep a constant speed and not get too off course. On the way out there were only 2 buoys and the turn around so I know I headed a bit off course a couple of times, but nothing too bad. I closed in on one person at the turnaround and had them in my sight on the way back but couldn't quite reach them! The way back felt ok for the most part, felt tired in the middle but powered through and got some energy back to pick it up at the end. The finish was on land so I just kept swimming until I practically beached myself (that's what it felt like anyway) and then stood up and sprinted. I knew someone was behind me so didn't want to get overtaken on land!

Finishing strong!

Apparently Matt didn't think I would be done so soon but he did get some pictures of my finish. As I put my timer in the container I saw that there were only a few in there - I must have done better than I thought. I finished in 42.44, which was faster than my goal time of 50 and my ultimate goal time of 45 minutes! I was happy with that!

Happy after finishing

It turned out I finished 8th overall and 4th female. I missed 3rd my 30 seconds - could I have caught her if I'd pushed harder I though to myself - maybe but I'm still happy with my swim. I came 1st in the 30-34 age group so got a nice water bottle as a prize.

Award ceremony

After hanging around at the beach for a while - it was a beautiful hot sunny day at this point - and watching the 10 and 5km finishers we headed out homewards with a couple of stops along Lake George. 

Lake George

Lake George and us

It was only my 2nd open water swim but I enjoyed it a lot and hope to do more it the future!

Hanging out in Bolton's Landing

Saratoga Polo

In the summer (I realise it's now October) I got tickets to a polo game in Saratoga. The first time we went the game got cancelled due to rain but we were fortunate that they switched our tickets to the big game the next weekend. The tickets were in the clubhouse area, center field with a bar and food service - if we were doing the polo thing we were doing it in style!

Ready for some horse polo fun

We got there early to enjoy the pre-game and I was very excited to see Pimms on the cocktail menu - so delicious on a beautiful summer afternoon/evening. I wasn't sure about the the rules of polo or what it would be like but it was a lot of fun. A good mix of people in the clubhouse side, with cars tailgating on the other side of the field.

Start of the game right by our seats

The game itself was more exciting than I thought it would be. It was fast and the commentary was really helpful in figuring out what was happening. I would have been very puzzled if they hadn't told us that they switch ends after each goal! The horses are so fast and athletic it was impressive when the action got up close to us because we were only a few feet from the edge of the field.

Polo action

The game was close, within one goal the whole time until the end (I think it was 9-7 or something at the end). After the game they did a big presentation of the trophy and all the players got to drink champagne from the cup. They even brought out the horse of the game to the presentation zone! The players all mingled with the spectators after the presentation which was quite nice, all very fun and inclusive. 

Presentation time

Crazy funny guy on the winning team

I would definitely go again next year!

Polo patrons