NebraskaLand Days - North Platte, NE

NebraskaLand Days is a two week celebration in North Platte, NE - a large town between the North and South Platte rivers. NebraskaLand Days is essentially North Platte's version of (insert town's name here) Days. It is actually a really cool festival, even if Nebraska Lottery's part in it is somewhat lame. NebraskaLand Days includes a Rodeo, a carnival, some big-name country concerts, and lots of sales and promotions, etc. A town of about 25,000 people, North Platte has plenty of restaurants and hotels, etc.

On the way out to North Platte, I called the parents of a friend to see if she'd be around, but she wasn't...I lost her phone number in my most recent cell phone fiasco. By chance, I ended up hanging out with some old classmates of hers.

For the Lottery, NebraskaLand Days was split up into two 1-week events, both of which I was part of. For the first week, everyone worked some of the events. Mana, Klink, and Amanda worked from Tuesday to Thursday. Angie, Benson, and myself worked Thursday through Saturday. JeraLee and Mike worked the whole time. On the second week, Gina, Amanda, myself, and Mike worked Thursday through Saturday while the others covered another event in Omaha.

Instead of setting up on the fairgrounds where the Rodeo, Carnival, and Concerts take place, we used our time in North Platte to do favors for our big reatailers in North Platte. Some of those retailers were gas stations and convenience stores, others were Liquor stores.

It was nice that we got to meet and accomodate some of our retailers. That's about all I can say for the format of this event. Moving the trailer twice a day is a royal pain in the ass. Trying to get a good satellite feed from two different places each day is like trying to win Powerball...it's a nice dream but you can't exactly count on it. Some of our retailers were very nice to us, helpful, and even generous. Other retailers worry about our big trailer taking up their precious parking while we bring them large numbers of customers for three hours. One retailer in the first week even tried to use old and invalid reciepts to claim premiums. Premiums they'd have been given for free if they'd been nice.

BG had some major problems Stayin' Alive. On the way home, the Big Green Van had a blowout on the right rear, which just so happens to be the tire next to the tailpipe. The blown-out tire pinched off the exhuast pipe, causing us to leave it in Gothenburg until week two. The problem turned out to be minor, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Now everyone's afraid to drive BG, and I suppose rightfully so. I belive the drivers plan to put out a driving strike until the van is fitted with new tires.

Despite frequent set-ups, disagreeable retailers, and vehicular strife, I really had a great time in North Platte. The off-the-clock festivities were a great time night after night, and there are many fun stories to tell.

On the first night I was there, Thursday the 15th, everyone was still there, so we all went out together - except Mike and Amanda, who are officially humbugs (not really.) We started our night at the Quality Inn and Suites - a fantastic hotel, if you're ever in NP, by the way - Almost everyone was essentially wasted by 9:00. JeraLee was the worst off, having consumed half a bottle of Bacardi Razz by herself (that's the Rum, not Bacardi Silver Raz, the malt beverage.) Klink was sober enough to drive, so we went to the Rodeo around 10, when we knew it would be about over. After the rodeo was a barn dance - the real reason we came. The band was a very good Country cover band whose name I don't remember hearing. I stayed relatively sober and just enjoyed myself by dancing. JeraLee might be a good dance partner, but she kept knocking her partners over due to lack of equilibrium, so it's hard to say. We attempted to Country Swing and Pretzel, although none of us really knew how. Some 15-year-old boys taught the girls to Pretzel, but Benson was the only guy who partook in dancing with underage girls *ahem*. It was great to be able to hang out with (almost) everyone. We even got to do a few line dances. We might not get that many more opportunities to all hang out together on the road, as there are so many weekends we're double booked. Everyone was too "tired" to hang out when we got back, except Ben, who found some more young women to spend his time with.... We all had a blast and I would definitely go back to the rodeo dance if the opportunity arose in future years.

Friday night we pretty much just hung around the hotel and drank and played games. I've never played a lot of drinking games, so I don't remember exactly what games we played, but I know we played something called tippy-cup, which involved tipping a cup. We also played some card game where you draw a card from a go-fish-esque pile and do whatever the little sheet of paper tells you to do upon retrieval of said card. It was a fun game. Jamie, a friend of Benson's, hung out with us that night. She wasn't exactly nice to me, but I didn't care that much, so I still had a lot of fun. She kept calling me Herbie because I was wearing a red shirt...I guess now that I think about Herbie's body-building physique, I'm not so insulted. Later that night, the motocross guys from the rodeo were on the second floor balcony, so I gave them some bourbon and hung out with them for awhile. They were pretty cool guys, of course, I think that about almost all riders. I gave them some of my Jim Beam before I went to bed. I guess I was just feeling generous...and I didn't know how I was going to get it home without breaking the rules.

Saturday night there were not after work activities, since we had a blowout in the BG. We didn't end up getting back to Lincoln until well after midnight, and we were all very tired. We did end up eating at the Pizza Hut in Gothenburg, where Mike generously covered dinner. We each had a beer, except JeraLee, who "forgot her ID" again. It was great to have Rachel waiting for me when I finally got back to town. I'd had a stressful day involving an eye infection, a blowout, and...well, just general stress.

On the way back out to North Platte for our second round of retailer visits, we picked up the green van. Neither Gina nor Amanda wanted to drive it, and reasonably so. Gina lost the van lottery and had to drive anyway. I rode with her just in case. We arrived in NP without incident, and everything was fine.

The Holiday Inn Express - Mike's hotel - has a manager's reception involving free beer and snacks every weekday from 4 to 7. Amanda, Gina, and I met Mike at the reception and partook in said free beer and snacks. This is where we met Brittany (hope that's the correct spelling,) the girl who'd been serving Mike free beer for the last week. She was a cute little red-head who seemed to have crush on Mike (probably originating in a ploy for a better tip.) After the free beer, we went to a nice-looking Mexican place nearby. The hostess told us the Margaritas were to die for, and we believed her. The waiter not only had never tried the Margarita, but he didn't even know what a Tequila Sunrise was...a bad omen from the get-go. The food took forever and wasn't very good, the service was mediocre at best, and the Margarita was among the blandest I've ever had...I could've made a better one with Lemonade and Montezuma - the wrong citrus and the cheapest Tequila on Earth, for those of you who may not know. I'm sure Angie would've left a mere 20% tip for this experience, but we left maybe 12 or 15 percent...I would say that's pretty generous for such a trainwreck. After dinner we all sort of just went back to our rooms and went to bed. I went to the hot tub at the Ramada - our hotel for week two - and drank a beer before going to bed.

Friday night we ended up "running into" Brittany at one of our event locations. We told her to meet us in Mike's hotel room later that night. I bought some Rum and some Caramel Apple Schnapps at City Discount Liquor - our retailer - and Mike got some Boulevard Wheat. When it came time to walk over the Mike's hotel, the girls opted out of our shindig, so I walked over on my own. I got to Mike's at the same time as Brittany, and I would say the first hour or so was a little awkward, which is to be expected when hanging out with your 27-year-old boss and the 20-year-old girl who has a crush on him. After awhile we loosened up and ended up having a good time. We watched TV, drank a little bit, and talked. I ended up discovering that Brittany and I have some mutual acquaintances, which was fun and interesting. At the end of the night, Mike avoided having to explain that he's engaged, and I had Brittany give me a ride back to the Ramada since I didn't want to walk through the rain in my mildly inebreated state. Brittany was a very nice girl and I think we'll probably see her again when we do other events in the Western half of Nebraska.

Saturday's drive home went off without a hitch, and we even got to stop in G.I. to get some free pizza pizza and see Amanda's boyfriend Chris at the local Little Ceasers. What excellent pizza...food is always better when cooked over someone else's fire.

I'm sure I've missed something or left something out, but that's alright. North Platte was fun, even though there were a few unfortunate happenings.