30 Jun 2023 - Baseball in Norwalk and Visit from Sister Karen

 

Ashley, Daniel Jr, Dan, Calvin, Karen, Doreen, Ed

Today we drove to Norwalk, the town we lived in and raised our kids in from Thanksgiving 1977 until Feb 2018, to watch our grandson Daniel Jr play in a three day baseball tournament.  

On the way down we drove through Des Moines and passed by our beautiful state capitol building.  The building was constructed between 1871 and 1886, and is the only five-domed capitol in the country.  The commanding feature is the central towering dome constructed of iron and brick and covered with tissue-paper thin sheets of pure 23-carat gold. There is a protective layer sealing the gold from the weather. The gold leafing was replaced in 1964–1965 at a cost of $79,938. The most recent regilding of the dome was carried out from 1998 to 1999, at a cost of about $482,000.  The dome shines beautifully over the city of Des Moines.

  

We arrived at the brand new Fareway Fields at the Gregg Young Sports Campus in Norwalk.  There are eight synthetic turf baseball fields designed to be playable 20 minutes after the rain stops.  So we had a front pass through unloading some rain on us this morning, so the 1100 hrs game was delayed one hour to 1200 hrs  Parking is still in development so we chose a nearby residential street to park the big brown truck.

Daniel at bat, getting ready to poke one deep

Daniel behind the plate.

Very few successfully steal second base when Daniel is behind the plate

The team wore their Mother's Day uniforms with their mom's names on the back.  Daniel plays shortstop, third base, catcher and pitcher normally.  He is a really good baseball player as is his brother Calvin.  The baseball talent runs in their genes as their dad, Dan, was first team all state catcher and set the record in Norwalk for the number of doubles hit in a season.  I played many years of baseball as primarily a pitcher and my dad Lefty, well if you have been reading my blog you know all about his baseball history!

So Daniels team, "Game Ready 12U", won their first game today 10-5 and then played again at 1400 hrs and won that game 9-8.  So they are seeded number 1.  Tomorrow (Saturday) they play at noon and if they win they don't play again until Sunday.  If they lose they play another game at 1800 hrs tomorrow.  We are so glad we are home and able to see him play in person rather than streaming online!

Doreen and I got back to Ankeny, showered up, and headed to a local Mexican restaurant as my sister Karen arrived in town today and we will be having dinner with her tonight along with Dan's family. 

 

Our mother Wilma was a beautiful artist.  I wished I had her talent.  When our mother passed away from Alzheimer's disease, Karen and I both received some of her paintings. Karen cleaned out a storage unit she had in Texas and brought back some of my mother Wilma's paintings for our kids.  After dinner we transferred those to our truck and brough them home.  Tomorrow morning Karen will come over to the house to see our upgrades since she was here last in 2018.  Here are some of Wilma's creations:

Karen also brought a couple keepsakes from my dad, Lefty - his retirement badge and his metallic membership card in the Iowa State Trooper's Association.  At some point these will be handed down to our son Dan and further to his kids at the appropriate time.  

 

Another awesome keepsake she brought is my grandmother Freda Fett's German bible from 1906 and a pencil sketch of Grandma Freda .  The bible especially is very fragile and so neat!  I was only five years old in 1961 when Grandma Freda passed away, but we must preserve the memory of her for our children and their children.

So, great day here.  Looking forward to watching our grandson "D" play again tomorrow!

29 Jun 2023 - NSTR Shopping, Coach Maintenance

 

Tree damage departing Oshkosh WI

We woke to sprinkles today and a dog with a bad tummy, so we wrapped things up here in the coach and then headed into town to our house.  I had to pick up a new LED marker light for the coach and we needed a few more things to restock before we leave in a few days.

At the house, I worked in the shop on repairs to my WiFi Ranger external router antenna that was damaged by a low-hanging tree branch as we departed Oshkosh WI.  As I explained previously, it was my own fault as I chose the route. The other factor is the antenna is on a fixed (rigid) mount, so it was an accident waiting to happen.  

A replacement antenna is no longer available as WiFi Ranger in Idaho was bought out and merged with Winegard in Burlington IA. That merger is still happening and they are not building any product at this time.    A replacement system comparable with mine would be ~$700.  No thanks.  Once I got the antenna/router down it was obvious  the router was intact and the damage was just physical damage to the antenna.  I was able  to use parts on hand and rebuild it.  I also implemented a spring mount so that if a low branch comes along again, it will simply fold down and then stand back up on it's own!

I also had a bad side marker LED light and I figured any auto parts store would have this, but not so much!  Luckily Imperial RV here in Ankeny had once in stock at a reasonable price.  I found some weatherproof crimp splices that have a heat-shrink coating, so that worked good.  Done!

I then headed up on the roof, pulling the covers off all three air conditioning units and cleaning the condenser coil fins.  Cottonwood trees are in full bloom here and the "fluff" that floats around in the air from cottonwood trees is the seeds of the tree. They do a real job on air conditioners including those at home.  So, periodic cleaning is a must to ensure peak performance.

While I has working outside and sweating profusely, Doreen was inside making three more quarts of her county fair blue ribbon-winning salsa.  She modified her process to use the Instant Pot while we are traveling with the RV.    

Tomorrow we will travel to Norwalk, our old home town, to watch Daniel Jr play baseball at 1100 hrs and 1300 hrs.  Depending on how they do will decided how many games they play this weekend.

Tomorrow evening we will all go out to eat with my sister Karen and her friend that have traveled up here from southern Texas.  It will be great to see them!

28 Jun 2023 - Shopping, Haircut and Work on RV

 

The highlight of Doreen's day was getting her hair cut.  She had been growing her hair long since this time last year in preparation for our 50th class reunion.  I have always really, really, really liked her in her long hair days.  A few pictures:

Doreen and her long hair, with her aunt and namesake Emogene

Doreen and her long hair and her long-haired BFF Linda Mehmen

Doreen and her long hair senior picture that makes me melt every time I look at it!

Doreen and her long hair at Prom with a slick looking dude with long sideburns

Doreen with her long hair and some fella at Sadie Hawkins dance

Doreen and all her long haired BFF's

Doreen and her long hair at our wedding

Doreen with her very long hair very preggo with our daughter Michelle, 

holding our sheepdog Fonzi in Maine

So do you see a pattern here?  Yeah me too!  Well, the reunion is over and her other BFF's that were also going to grow their hair out for the reunion bailed early, so Doreen won the contest LOL and again, the reunion is over.  So she headed to the girls barber shop today while I headed to the guys candy store (Menards and Home Depot).  I came home with a few new tools and parts I needed for an RV project, and Doreen came home with a trim.  I will admit it looks great and she wanted to get it cut as the longer hair was high maintenance.  So, happy wife, happy life, right?

On the way back from the haircut we stopped at HyVee which is a local food store and we restocked provisions.  Doreen made the mistake of taking me along, so there were a few goodies that made their way into the cart that were not on her list.  I like fried spicy Spam with my eggs.  I like Mezzetta's hot giardiniera.  I like brat patties on the grill.  

We stopped back at our brick and mortar to pick up Liberty and then headed back to the campground.  The smoke from the Canadian wildfires continues to obscure our views.  Doreen's picture does not do it justice.  It is really hazy

We were glad to see our son Dan when he stopped out this afternoon to check up on us.  I worked several projects including a malfunctioning side marker light.  It is LED and actually died, so we will get one at the local auto parts store tomorrow.  I applied sealant to my new slide-out bulb seals.  I also repaired some trim on my fridge and fixed the mirror in my truck.  We also cleaned the air conditioning filters.  I've got several more tasks on the list while we are here before we head out on Phase II of our journeys.  

Tomorrow we will continue with the list of to-do's,  Friday our grandson Daniel Jr plays baseball in our old home town Norwalk so we plan to watch him play.  Friday afternoon my sister arrives from Texas and we will all go out to eat with her.  Busy, busy.  We are here until Wednesday morning when we launch out of here towards Sioux City IA for a few nights.  

All is well.  Thanks for checking in on us!

27 Jun 2023 - Shopping and Working at Home

 

We had a nice day starting with dropping Liberty off at home and then we stopped by to see our grand daughter Hailee (our son Dan's daughter).  She works at a local coffee shop part time and she brewed us up some coffee and lemonade for Doreen.  It does not seem possible she has her driver's license and is getting so old!

We then stopped by Home Depot to buy the electrical supplies I need to install the "Cheap Heat" system I bought from son-in-law Keith at the Alliance Rally in Goshen IN.  "Cheap Heat" is an add-on system that converts your propane-powered RV furnace into an electric or propane furnace. 

We then stopped by Kohls to get me some new cargo shorts since the ones I have are thread-bare!  They are probably 10 years old so got my money's worth out of them.

Next stop was the Guadalajara Mexican restaurant for lunch and then home for some more work there.  We keep whittling away at stuff there plus I use the high-speed Internet we have there to upload photos.  We also shower at home since we have no sewer connection at the Army Corps of Engineers campground we are at.  

Speaking of the campground, here is a map showing the location of the campground compared to the Saylorville Lake, the dam at the south end, and Ankeny and our house located east of here.

Here are a few pictures from the Saylorville dam looking down on the campground and the spillway.  We really like this campground, but more specifically the campsite we have that backs up to the spillway.  Even though it is not full hookup, it is still nice.  Some pictures:

Not too clear but the smoke from Canada rolled in today

The haze over Saylorville Lake

Looking from the dam down onto the campground and spillway

The spillway and blue arrow points to our campsite

Looking across the spillway with our campsites to the left

The rear of our Alliance Paradigm coach with my flag visible

Nothing special scheduled for tomorrow.  We have a pretty good list of things to work on here at the coach.  Nothing major, just some small stuff.

In closing, we lost a great leader and friend from the 132d Communications Flight, Iowa Air National Guard.  Senior Master Sergeant (Ret) Jim Briseno passed away.  I served with Jim from 1977 when I joined the Iowa ANG until 1984 when Jim retired.  R.I.P brother. 

26 Jun 2023 - NSTR - Visit to the Homestead

 

All quiet in the campground last night.  This morning we loaded up the truck with Liberty, laundry, laptop and our Phase I treasures and headed toward our house for the first time since 1 Apr when we launched on our 2023 RV trip.  We dropped Liberty off at the groomer and then headed home.  Doreen did several loads of laundry and we reviewed all the mail that had accumulated.  99% of it was recycled as junk mail.  I spent quite a bit of time on the laptop uploading pictures and bringing my cloud drive up to date since we have fiber Internet to use.

Before noon we received a call Liberty was done so we picked her up and picked up some lunch to go on the way back.  After lunch I continued with my computer tasks while Doreen pulled a few weeds on our berm and harvested a few pounds of rhubarb.  It was cleaned, chopped and froze for future use.

This evening our son Dan and his family hosted us with smoked ribs, pasta salad and sweet corn!  It was delicious!

Tomorrow we will start whittling away at the list of stuff we have to do while we are home.  That's it for now. 

25 Jun 2023 - Arrived at Bob Shetler Campground near Saylorville Lake Johnston IA

 

We departed the Cedar Falls Iowa area this morning at 1012 hrs in the rain.  The reason we delayed our departure more than normal is a late check-in time at our next campground which is only about 135 miles away. 

Lois Conradi

We drove to Dike Iowa and met up with one of Doreen's close family friends, Lois Conradi.  Lois is family to us and it was so nice that she would drive up from Reinbeck Iowa to rendezvous with us as we traveled.  We talked with her for 30 minutes or so and then headed westbound directly into the strong winds and intermittent rain.  The turn southbound on I-35 was not much better as the headwind turned into a side wind that really rocked the RV, even with the sure-footed dually in the lead.  

At 1351 hrs we drove across Saylorville lake dam and turned into Bob Shetler campground.  This is an Army Corps of Engineers park, so the rate is great, but it is not full hookup.  The good news is the sites are paved, level and 50 amp electric, and there is a water hydrant within one hose length!  The other advantage is it is within just a few miles of our home in Ankeny.  So the plan is to live in our RV for the 10 nights we are here so we are not having to move stuff back into our house just to move it back before we leave, and hope we did not forget anything.  Our house is basically "shut-down" right now so we are going to leave it like that, except we did have our son turn the water heater back on so we could use out laundry facilities.

If you remember from my earlier blog posts back in April when we were visiting my sister in southern Texas, she is getting ready to hit the road and this is one of her stops.  She will be here at the end of the week and will be dropping off some of my mother's paintings along with some other items.  We will have dinner with her before she moves on to her next stop.  Other than that, Liberty has a grooming appointment tomorrow but we have no other scheduled events at this point. We are looking forward to seeing our son Dan and his family while we are home.  I have a lot of work to do following our class reunion and some other things on our plate while here, but hopefully we will find some time to relax a bit too.  A few campground pictures:  

Nice wide sites

The spillway from the dam is right behind us

Folks fishing along the spillway