Luke’s advanced rec baseball team decided to play in a select tournament out in Graford, Texas, the second weekend of May. About 30 minutes away from Graford is one of Texas’ most visited state parks, Lake Mineral Wells State Park. As we had never been there, this was a great time to visit the park and take in some great baseball in the same weekend.
Our first task was to get out to the park, setup, and then head over to the ball fields because we had an 8 PM game on Friday night. Rocker B Ranch hosts these tournaments from May through July and caters other special events throughout the rest of the year. The fields were in terrific shape thanks to their grounds crew’s care before and after games. There was an elevated, covered platform to take in the game which provided a great view. The 8 PM late start was tough though for some of the boys and we dropped the first game 5-19.
It rained hard on Friday night. Big, fat, loud drops of rain poured over the area, and it wasn’t quite done when we got out of bed. Luke helped with breakfast on Saturday morning before we headed out to explore the lake. Surprisingly, as soon as we arrived, the sun came out. We fished from a dock for a little bit, soaking in the sun as it turned out to be a gorgeous morning. Luke convinced PaPa to rent a canoe, so they along with Bryce and I ventured out with two paddles and our fishing tackle. We paddled around the lake for an hour before we had to head back to the ballpark.
The rain had closed one of the fields, so our 7u games were moved to an indoor arena. It looked like an old horse arena, now covered in turf, with some nets for batting cages. Having played one game the night before, we were only slotted for one game in the arena which was nice. Balls were ricocheting off the ceiling, bouncing in weird directions, and it made for a wild game. I know the boys will never forget that one, and it turned out a winner with a 17-13 final score. After the game, all the boys were able to finally get into the swimming pool. They were asked to wait until after the game Saturday, so after the last out they raced to grab their swimsuits and jumped in the pool. Bryce and Reese jumped in too. Reese was sad at first because we forgot her floaties, but came around after a few minutes. She did test my attentiveness towards the end of the afternoon as she jumped into the deep end and made me jump in after her.
I was happy to get to use my new quick connection for my Blackstone grill to take advantage of the camper’s propane instead of the tiny green bottles. We grilled out Saturday night and cooked breakfast on it Sunday morning. We took a nice walk through the campground Saturday night, but there wasn’t much time to explore on Sunday morning as we had to get back to the fields. Sunday is elimination day, win or go home. Based on our pool play, we were the number 3 seed and would need to win twice to make it to the finals. Our first game went very well with a resounding 19-5 win but in the semi-finals, we played a very good team that sent us packing with a 18-3 loss. Luke played exceptionally well during the tournament, and we enjoyed watching he and the bobcats compete.
We will need to get back to the state park again, though. There’s so much that we didn’t get to do the first time. We look forward to our next visit.