The West Coast Trip Begins (June 8th and 9th)

Monday June 8th -- Travel to Dyersville, Iowa

We left Cincinnati yesterday and drove 8 hours to Dyersville, Iowa, the city where the Field of Dreams movie was filmed. It was a very pleasant drive, although we did see some of the damage caused by the most recent heavy rains. We got into Dyersville at 4pm local time, so we had time to decompress before dinner. Nancy went out for a run. I napped.

After a while, we got ready for dinner. As we travel the country, we’ve tried to eat at good, local restaurants. The hotel recommended we go to the Country Junction (http://www.countryjunction.com/). It’s a nice little local restaurant where they make everything from scratch … great chicken rice soup and country rolls. The big excitement of the dinner was the sounding of the tornado warning sirens. The waitresses asked everyone to go to their basement shelter which was actually a nice banquet room. I brought my plate downstairs and finished eating while we waited out a very severe thunderstorm (but no tornados). After dinner, Nancy asked me to drive around town where she had run to show me the flooding from all the rain they’ve had. It was amazing. There were lakes where there should have been fields. One local park was completely under water. For those of you willing to invest in commodities, I strongly recommend investing in corn. Even though the price is high due to corn’s use in ethanol, it will go higher. The Iowa farmers have not been able to plant their fields due to the flooding. And, more rain is expected this week. BUY CORN FUTURES!!

Tuesday June 9th -- Field of Dreams

The Field of Dreams farm is located about 3 miles out of town. We drove there this morning. With all the rain, it should be called Field of Streams. It had standing water around home plate and by the stands. When standing on the field, it sounds just like the movie with birds chirping and a breeze rustling thru the field. The farmhouse is beautiful, freshly painted with the swing is still on the porch. The only downside … it’s too early for corn. There’s nothing for James Earl Jones to disappear into. We walked on the field, took a few pictures, and had a catch. A few things that struck me as I walked on the field:
-- the farm house is much closer to the field than it appears in the movie,
-- the stands are not nearly as high as they seem (the girl only fell about 5 feet),
-- there’s no mound (it’s flat like in Little League), and
-- the baselines are too close to the infield grass (I should be a baseball field designer), and
-- they have a very nice souvenir stand on site.

Interesting footnotes:
-- there’s no charge for going onto the field
-- the owners, the Lansing family, still live in the farmhouse (Nancy talked to Bob Lansing),
-- the family pays Universal Studios a licensing fee to use the “Field of Dreams” name
-- the family pays for the upkeep of the field by selling souvenirs. Here’s the web address if you’d like to see the field and buy some souvenirs
(http://www.fieldofdreamsmoviesite.com/distance.html)

Here’s a link to the pictures we took (http://www.flickr.com/photos/14772189@N03/sets/).

We're now in Wall, SD to visit the Badlands national park tomorrow. While we're here, we had to visit the tackiest tourist trap ever ... Wall Drug. There are at least 1000 billboards advertising the place and all they do is sell souvenirs (http://www.walldrug.com/). Onto the Badlands.