We traveled from Marceline to West Des Moines, Iowa for a 3-night stay for some relaxation before our next stop Omaha.

Day one – was relaxation day and catch up on laundry day.

Day two – a hot day, so we found a beautiful park with a lake, Raccoon River Park, to enjoy during the late morning.  Our hotel had a BBQ backyard area so Lorraine cooked an early dinner on the grill and then took a ride to Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino for night thoroughbred racing.  Mike had no luck with the ponies but Lorraine did in the casino, which is opposite of what usually happens!

Day three – Des Moines’ Downtown Famers Market, only open on Saturday from 7am-noon.  The market was an outside market with over 300+ vendors of food, drink, flowers, produce, meats and many other items. Very well attended and very crowded.

Very relaxing few days for us after being away for a month.

Omaha – NCAA College World Series

Visited Charles Schwab Stadium in downtown Omaha for a college world series game on day 1.  We had tickets for the night game so it wasn’t as hot and we had shade for most of the game.  Sunday’s night game was Florida vs Oral Roberts, Florida came out on top and it was a great game!

The FanFest area outside the stadium had many vendors of food, merchandise, alcohol, and other fun things to do.  The area was electric and filled with so many baseball fans from all over the country.  In front of the stadium were flags of the teams playing in the series.  Once a team is eliminated their team flag is lowered to half-staff.   We should have arrived to the area earlier because there was so much to see and do. 

Made our way inside early to have dinner before gametime, of course hotdogs and popcorn were on our menu.  So much fun, I would recommend this to anyone who is a baseball fan, it’s a must do and see.

Day 2 – back downtown again to a different area, the Old Market neighborhood.  First, we enjoyed breakfast at a small diner.  After breakfast we walked the neighborhood for a bit before the heat set in again.  The town reminded me of Philadelphia areas with the cobblestone roads and shops.  Many of the shops and restaurants were closed being a Monday morning, but we did find Upstream Brewing Company to enjoy a drink before we made our way back to our hotel.

Our next 2 days we will be traveling to Colorado, Black Hawk up first!