Saturday, August 15, 2009

Travel Blog - Day 5

Travel Blog – Day 5
Today was a great (and exhausting) day. The morning consisted of one more quick trip to the beach (very difficult to leave), a flurry of packing up, and the beginning of what was supposed to be a reasonable time in the car trip to Dyersville, Iowa. About 30 minutes in we hit some very nasty traffic, but luckily our trusty GPS was able to detour around the mess and put us into slightly less nasty traffic. There was road construction everywhere, and although we all stayed relatively cheery through it all, tempers began to flare just a bit as we crawled along I-90.

By the way, I forgot to mention yesterday the interesting, somewhat mind-blowing concept of crossing over a time zone while driving. For example, yesterday we left Michigan at 1:30 pm, drove for 90 minutes, and landed in Chicago at 2:00 pm. It was so cool because we felt like we gained an extra hour to play! Then of course, on the way back we lost said hour, but it was dark by then so it didn’t really matter.

Anyway, once the road opened up there was the usual singing and frivolity in the car, calling out things that we saw along the way like sheep, horses, cool buildings, and of course, CORN!!!

I now know why it’s so cheap and easy to produce and use high fructose corn syrup – the stalks are EVERYWHERE! As far as the eye can see, on both sides of the road for hundreds and hundreds of miles. I was amazed by the vastness of the fields and the massiveness of it all. We started doing the Bubba Gump shrimp bit about corn -cornbread, corn pudding, cornflakes, etc. etc. We even decided that we want to try growing our own corn once we get a yard. Keep you posted…

Moving on….we made a quick stop to refuel the car and the tummies, and headed back out on the road. Guess whose turn it was to drive again?

Sigh.

Through no fault of my own (and the other members in the car will back me up on this) pretty much immediately after we started off the exit we needed to take was closed due to more construction, and since there was no indicated detour, we ended up going a little bit out of our way. This route took us through even MORE construction, and then thankfully our wonderful, glorious, tremendous GPS got us back on the right track. At this point we were anxiously watching the clock because we knew that the main attraction of the day, the Field of Dreams field closed at 6:00and our ETA was showing 5:15. We needed to move it!

One more very quick stop along the way for batteries for the camera (they died a tragic death on the way out of Chicago the night before) and we finally staggered our way through the twists and turns of the roads along the cornfields of Dyersville, Iowa.

And then….there they were. The baseball field and the farm house from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams.

Unbelievable.

Now, to some of you this may seem like a corny (sorry, no pun intended) thing to go and see. But Field of Dreams is one of my all-time favorite movies, we quote it all the time in our house, and I’ve always loved the message of listening to your inner voice and making your own dreams come true. The magic of the movie, with all of the characters having their unresolved dreams realized, has always resonated with me, and I feel that the movie is really beautiful on many levels.

So we drive up, we’re all sooo excited, and amongst the many other excited tourists we get to play ball on the field, run the bases, walk into the corn field, take pictures everywhere (I will post them, I promise), and of course I’m running around re-enacting every scene that I can!! In the middle of it all, an entire wedding party comes walking down to the field – veiled bride, white-tied groom, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and family members, and start taking photos all around the field, on the bleachers, in front of the sign – it was fantastic!

We stayed there as long as we could, picked up some souvenirs and then reluctantly got back into the car for the final stretch of the day which would bring us to Des Moines.

We watched the sun go down on our way, we stopped for what was truly one of the best meals I have ever had (Highway 63 Diner in Waterloo, IA), and thanks to the magic of a DVD playing on a laptop, we made it to our hotel with everyone still feeling friendly toward one another. Whew!

Another great day, although we’re all feeling a bit stiff and sore from so much time in the car. Looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

P.S. License plate total: 42. We’re hoping to get a few more tomorrow…


Deep thought for the day:
It’s a simple one. Dreams do come true. That’s the message of the Field of Dreams movie, and being there on the actual field reminded me of that. I also remember saying long ago that someday I was going to visit that field. I didn’t know when or how it was going to happen, but I knew that somehow, someday I would. And today, 20 years after I first saw the movie, it happened, and it was better than I could have imagined. I got to share this amazing “dream come true” moment with my husband and kids on the way to our new life, and it was truly an experience that I will always treasure. And as it says in the movie, “If you build it, he will come.” Meaning, if you can dream it, you can do it.

Whatever your dream is, go and build it. Then watch and see what comes.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for your "deep thought" section...very moving! (no pun indended there!)

    Susan

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi,
    Thank you very much indeed for another thoughtful and well-written post. Hope you share your thoughts in the future too.

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    ReplyDelete