We woke up to rain this morning and we headed into Ankeny to our "sticks and bricks" to meet my sister there so she could see our remodel projects. They just stopped for a few minutes and were on their way to other locations in Iowa to visit friends.
The rain continued as we monitored the Game Changer app for updates on grandson Daniel's baseball game scheduled for noon. One of the advantages of the synthetic turf fields in the new Norwalk Sports Campus is they are not impacted by rainfall like the old dirt fields were. I remember years ago at Fort Des Moines Little League when we would spend hours trying to make the fields playable after a rainstorm. We even used diesel fuel and burned the pitchers mound to evaporate the moisture! The coach posted "no delays" so we headed south to Norwalk.
We arrived at the Norwalk Sports Campus and the rain had ceased. There were no parking spots anywhere close, so we parked on a side street and walked to the complex. Unseasoned baseball game spectators would take that nice juicy parking spot right behind the field, but that is a sure way to take a foul ball in the windshield LOL. Voice of experience speaking here!As we walked in the gate for the noon game, the Mullets food truck had no wait so Doreen placed and order while I took the lawn chairs to our field. Mullets is a restaurant/bar in Des Moines near the river and they are apparently running a food truck here, rather than a traditional concession stand. Back in my running days I would start running at Cumming IA and run up the bike trail that used to be a railroad right-of-way, through Des Moines Waterworks Park and further east to Mullets Bar. If I crossed the river and then back across the bridge to Mullets, I could get in exactly 13.1 miles which is a half marathon, and Doreen would be waiting for me there. I ran that many times as I trained for the many 5K's, 10K's and half marathons I ran, and finally the 2013 Air Force full Marathon (26.2 miles) which I ran with my daughter Jennifer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton OH.
Anyway, back to the baseball game, Daniel's Game Ready 12U team beat the Western Iowa Hurricanes 3-2 so now they play again tomorrow (Sunday) at noon again. We will be there!
When we got back to the campground Doreen made some more salsa while I worked on a couple more projects and minor repairs. One of the repairs involved replacing an intermittent CO/propane alarm module. Mine had been acting weird and I have test equipment to make sure I did not actually have propane leaking of carbon monoxide. Another thing that can cause false alarms is dirt or other contaminants in there so I blew it out and it still falsed. I had a spare detector, which is hard-wired, so I replaced it today
Later when the rain stopped we headed out on another walk-about. As it is a holiday weekend the campground appears to be completely full and many others are picnicking, fishing and enjoying the outdoors. We walked along the spillway and there were quite a few fishing. The water was really rolling through the spillway.
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