Road Trip Pt. 1: Nebraska Wedding

8/17-8/19


The first leg of our three part August road trip took us to a friend's wedding in the tiny northeast Nebraska town of Bazile Mills. We started out Friday night by staying another night at the wonderful HarrisWorld B&B where we would be leaving Zelda for the duration of the trip. Many thanks to Mike & Kim for continuing to look after her whenever we leave town.


We left Rochester early Saturday morning in order to arrive with enough time to secure our lodging and change before the 5:00 ceremony. We knew there weren't a lot of places to stay in the area, so we opted to camp for the night at the nearby Willow Creek SRA. We don't take the time to go tenting often enough, so this seemed like a good excuse to get out there for a night. The catch was that Nebraska state parks don't take reservations on the weekend if you're only planning on staying for one night, so we had to get there as early as possible.


We made it all the way to South Dakota before we realized that we had forgotten to bring any of our cameras, so we stopped in at the Yankton Wal-Mart (the first time I've set foot in one since the great Boo-Berry search of 2006) to get a couple disposable ones. As a result, we had no zoom, and everything you are about to see looks like it was taken from at least 100 yards away. We tested it out with this picture of a bowling alley/family fun center there in Yankton. Only in the heartland can you get away with painting the word "SH-BOOMS" on the side of your business.




We made it to the state park in no time, but that's where the trouble starts. It would seem that the park system doesn't receive a lot of funding in Nebraska, especially the ones in extremely rural areas, so the signage was poor to nonexistent, there were no maps anywhere, and everything is self-service (meaning that there are no offices or rangers where you can get help). I had looked at a map of the park while drawing up this plan and had picked out the tent campground on the NW edge of the lake as our destination, but when we got there all we found was a barren loop with a bunch of signs saying, "Do Not Camp Here".


I hadn't brought a map of the park with me and there wasn't one to be found, but I luckily remembered that the main trailer campground was around on the south side of the lake. I just didn't know how to get there. After many false turns due to poor signage, we made it there and picked out a site by around 3:30. That left us about half an hour to pitch our tent, fill out all the forms, pay for our park pass and camp site, and change into our nice clothes for the wedding. We managed it in about 40 minutes and bent a few speed laws to get to the church on time. (I understand they're loosely enforced 'round those parts anyway.)


I suppose I should probably tell you whose wedding this was we were going to. The groom, Brett, is a friend of mine from work. We play on the same Rochester city league football and basketball teams, are bitter foes in the work volleyball league, and have been to each other's game nights, etc. He was marrying his lovely girlfriend since college, Sarah, whose father presided over the ceremony. The ceremony was in the lovely little 19th century Lutheran church where Sarah essentially grew up. Here's the happy couple now, being bombarded with bubbles on their way out of the church.



Their getaway vehicle was a school bus (which we somehow managed to not get a picture of) with enough room for the entire wedding party and more. I landed a seat on it, and we whooped and hollered through the streets of nearby Creighton (where Brett grew up). It was fun to see how they knew everybody that we passed on the streets. There was even a sign congratulating them in the window of one of the local businesses. I guess that's small town America for you.


The reception was relatively uneventful. Instead of a toast, Brett's best men (his twin brothers) sang him a song to the tune of "Don't Worry Be Happy". Thank you for not doing that, Steve. As you might expect, the DJ played a lot of oldies and country music. Despite the urgings of our friends, Meaghan and I managed to not find a song worth dancing to before retiring to the campground relatively early. We had a long drive ahead of us the next day.


Before hitting the road the next morning, we took a quick spin down to the beach and took a walk out on the stone jetty that protects the swimming area. It reminded us of the much longer jetty protecting the much larger beach in Pärnu, Estonia that we walked along on our honeymoon. Here's me with proof that there are bodies of water in Nebraska (even if they are man-made reservoirs).



I'll continue with the next leg, visiting with Meaghan's family in Pflugerville, TX, sometime in the next couple days.