Busy Saturday Afternoon

Saturday afternoon, Linda and I went out to the Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt for the A-Mazing Prairie Festival. The main feature being offered was the prairie maze. The Polk County Conservation Board has rebuilt a pretty large area with plants that would have been common when settlers first arrived in this part of Iowa. They then cut an excellent maze into it and let people go in and try to find their way through. It was not easy! One of the great features of the maze was that, even when you were tall enough to see over the top, you could not see the maze itself. The dominant grass was Big Bluestem which was thick enough tall enough that I could only see the heads of some of the other adults in the maze. Shorter people would have been completely immersed in the experience. Even with the ever so slight advantage of height, it took us over half an hour to find our way through.

Besides the maze, the park offered their normal services. One of the very popular attractions today was the canoeing. Walking around one of the Skunk River oxbows, I counted six canoes in the water and in sight. The twists and turns of the river within the park can easily hide several. I fondly remembered having taken my kids there to do a little canoeing here years ago. There is very little current so we enjoyed gliding quietly through the woods and grassland. The narrow twisting channels keep you guessing what's waiting around the next corner.

The next stop on of the day was dinner at the Norwood Inn, a small cement block tavern with a hot sausage sandwich that understandably made the list of the Des Moines Register's 100 things to eat in Iowa before you die (number forty for those who look.) When we arrived, there were several picnic tables of guys on the east side of the building chatting with the grillmeister. We headed inside and found a raucous crowd, two televisions showing college football, and two empty chairs at the bar. We sat at the bar, placed our order, and learned it had been the day of their golf outting. No wonder! Our sandwiches arrived and we started into two of the biggest, tastiest hot sausage sandwiches either of us could remember. As we were in the second half of the meal, the results of the golf were announced and prize bags were awarded. One group was awarded a collection of humorous items that included pink furry hats, feather boas, and cans of Silly String! Fortunately, these grown men knew what to do. They donned their hats, wrapped their necks in feathers, and opened fire on one another with the string. The a few bystanders and the pool table took collateral damage as camera phones documented the action. It was the proverbial hoot! Hunger and thirst satisfied (for the next day or two,) we set out for our next stop.

The Drake Bulldogs have been having an excellent year! After being outgunned by the UNI Panthers, the Dawgs have reeled off five consecutive wins. Each home game adds another feature. The most obvious is the marching band. The first night, they didn't march. The next game, they marched but did fairly simple (looking) formations. Tonight, they were doing pretty complicated (looking) moves while playing some pretty jazzy numbers. No Sousa for these cats; they're playing some pretty interesting, non-traditional halftime shows... and sounding great! When all was said and done, the Bulldogs won 35-3. In each of their wins, they've allowed no more than seven points to be scored against them. In each of their home wins, they've scored at least thirty-three points; on the road, twenty-one. These 'dawgs have bite.