Heartland Senior Games Day 1

We set the alarm for about 5:45 this morning. It was the first day of the Heartland Senior Games, so that meant getting up and around and on the road early. The temperatures were below 32 degrees last night - so it was pretty chilly this morning.....

When you live in Florida you don't make a habit of keeping a window scraper in your car. There was frost on the ground and a layer of ice on the windows of the car. So Rich went back to the RV and pulled out the spatula that we use on the grill.............and proceeded to scrape the ice from the windows.

But the sun came out and by 8:45 players started to shed some of the sweat pants and jackets and took to the courts. The above picture is of Rich and Stan getting ready to play their first game and then a little practice time before the actual match began. This was a single elimination tournament with the losers going to a consolation bracket to play off for the Bronze medal...... Sounded OK - but it allows one team to lose their first game and go to the consolation bracket and play for a bronze medal, while the team that beat them stays in the winners bracket and if they lose ONE time don't get to play for the Bronze. The team that Rich and Stan BEAT in the first round - ended up playing for a medal and they did not. Go figure!!!! Anyway - Rich and Stan won their first match, but once they lost one match after that, they were done for the day. The purpose is to allow all teams to play at least two matches before they are eliminated. And that works when there are at least four teams in the age group.

Click on picture to enlarge - use back arrow to return to this page. Clockwise starting in the upper left corner: My doubles parter Karen, Sally and Judy Goldberg, Next is Karen and I with our Bronze Medals. Sally and her partner Barb Thulin (from Tanglewood) with their Silver Medals. Louann and Nadine from Kings Point. Bruce Whitehead and Walter Kuehn. Sally and Kathy Hughes - enjoying the games. Kathy was a court monitor for the tournament today. The last picture is Gary Bejin who we have been corresponding with via e- mail but just met for the first time today. He is a USAPA Ambassador from Michigan, and with him is Patrick, USAPA Ambassasdor from upstate NY - who winters at Tanglewood.

Karen and I lost our first match, which put us in the consolation bracket to play off for Bronze - When they sent us to the courts for our final match - the sent us out to play with the team that had ALREADY been awarded the Gold Medal??????? Yes we were confused - not understanding that we had already won the Bronze medal, and we were just getting to play a second match.

It was really great seeing a lot of the people that we had met in Tanglewood last year and we enjoyed being back for the Heartland Games. We had a great time, but we sure hope that next year they can go back to the regular double elimination.

We had taken a change of clothes with us with the idea of stopping at Rich's favorite restaurant in Sebring - Homers Smorgasboard. But the tournament was over real early in the afternoon - before 1:30. That was a little early in the day for all that food - so we headed for home. Back in Wauchula - the Hot Fudge Shop was serving a Speghetti Dinner Special, so at 3:00 we headed out for the pickleball courts, then enjoyed the homemade speghetti. It was excellent!

Tomorrow is the Mixed Doubles Event - so it's early to bed - early to rise and back to Sebring in the morning.