Labor Day sees more at parks

By The Associated Press

and McCook Daily Gazette

Attendance at Nebraska state parks over the Labor Day weekend fell with the temperatures, but warmer weather brought back some of the visitors on the holiday.

Nebraska had struggled for several days through a streak of hot weather with highs in the 100s, but that weather pattern broke into cooler temperatures on Friday.

"I can't say much about Saturday and Sunday, but the parking lot was full Monday," said David Mefford, who has a cabin at Hugh Butler Lake. Others reported more than the usual numbers of boats in the water for the weekend, despite cooler weather.

Incident reports from the McCook police blotter indicated only slightly more activity than a normal weekend. Branched Oak State Recreation Area near Lincoln received showers Saturday night and drizzly weather for most of Sunday, said park Superintendent Dave Kinnamon.

"It was a nice refreshment from the hot weather, but it went too far," Kinnamon said.

Warmer temperatures and sunny skies on Monday helped attendance, Kinnamon said.

Still, the park's overall weekend visitation was down about 25 to 30 percent compared with normal Labor Day weekends, he said.

Kinnamon also blamed Branched Oak's lower attendance on the lake's low water level, competition from Saturday's Cornhusker football home opener and the Nebraska State Fair, which ended Monday.

Fewer boaters came to the lake over the weekend, the superintendent said.

"There's a misconception that the lake is too low," Kinnamon said. "It's not as much of a problem as many people may think."

At Lake Minatare State Recreation Area near Scottsbluff, about 400 visitors had come by mid-afternoon Monday, and Superintendent Dan Thornton said he thought it was possible the park could see 500.

That was after a weekend of 300 to 400 day visitors each day and highs in the 60s. Monday's high was 84 degrees.

The number of overnight campers at Lake Minatare -- 1,000 each day -- was normal for a Labor Day weekend, but the daily visitation was down, Thornton said.

"We had a few fishermen out but basically nobody else on the water, no. ... Jet Skis because it's been cold and wet up until today," he said Monday.

Weekend attendance at Lake McConaughy State Recreation Area and Lake Ogallala State Recreation Area was about 27,250 people a day, compared with about 30,000 a day for an average holiday weekend, park Superintendent Mitch Gerstenkorn said. Low water levels in Lake McConaughy, a struggling economy and cooler weather all cut into attendance, Gerstenkorn said.

Cool weather could have dropped attendance more than it did, Gerstenkorn said.

"Everyone's trying to squeeze that one last family vacation in at the end of the summer. Everyone's getting that one last hurrah in," he said.

Lower-than-normal attendance and low lake levels gave people a lot of beach space, he said. And the cool weather seemed to help people behave well.

"Park-goers temperaments follow the weather. When it's cool we don't seem to have as many problems," he said.

Other events marking Labor Day in Nebraska included the Septemberfest Labor Day parade and a Democratic Party pancake feed in downtown Omaha.