Monday, July 16, 2012

Left you hangin’ didn’t I?

Well, we left Waterloo (still singing Abba in my head) headed for Dyersville and the Field of Dreams movie set.

We visited a few years ago but this was Doris’ first time at the field.

During our first visit we terrorized Reese for life by Tom and I pretending to disappear into the corn.  She was five years old.  In retrospect, probably not our best parenting moment, but we were only a few years into it so you can expect some hiccups now and then.  We’re much better at it now.

We got their early and walked around the field and of course, out to the corn.  This time though, Reese was game enough to venture pretty far into the cornfield with me and allowed us to take her picture fading into the corn.  Tom took an enhanced picture of her that makes it look like she’s disappearing.  Spooky!

There’s an old bat that someone left at the fence so we bought a ball and decided we would try to hit a few. 

By this time more people had arrived and were playing an impromptu game.  They were nice enough to include us so Reese stepped up to bat.

She hit one down the 3^rd base side on her second try!  As Reese took first base Tom stepped up to the plate.  He hit one out to left field on the first try and off to the bases he went.  Everyone was great with Reese helping her know where to go.

Now for the heavy hitter!  I took the bat and positioned myself at home plate ready for the first pitch. 

You know that song “One, two, three strikes you’re out…”  We’ll there’s a picture of me in the songbook under that one.  I wanted a hit badly, but alas it was not to be.  I took the walk of shame and continued to cheer on Tom and Reese. 

It was so much fun!  It's so funny how complete strangers can come together in such an unexpected way. 

The sale of the field had closed three days before, but we were assured that the new corporate owners were going to leave the field as is and even perhaps open the house for tours.  They are adding 24 regulation fields in the area surrounding the field.  I hope it doesn't detract from the middle of know where feeling you get now when you’re at the farm.

The rumor is that the farm and field were sold for upwards of $5 million and that the original owners were building a new home closer to downtown Dyersville.

We left with a renewed love for Iowa (or was it Heaven?) and vowed to watch the movie when we got home. 

We headed to nearby Dubuque where we had two last things on our list of things to do on our trip.

Our first stop is the Fenelon Elevator Company. 

I mentioned that Doris doesn’t like heights right?  Well, surprisingly the elevator is at the top of a very steep hill.  A VERY STEEP hill. 

Clearly Doris was not going to take the $2 round trip ride up or down the hill, which I mentioned was STEEP.

You would have thought that I would remember Doris’ dislike of heights, but it honestly never occurred to me, especially when I asked her to take our picture over the ledge.  One look at her face and it was clear I would have to live without a picture of the three of us in the tramcar.

There’s one lady who runs the tram, and she doesn’t like to be distracted from her task of raising and lowering the tram.  At this point I’m feeling really good about her dedication to her job.   I mentioned it was STEEP right?

We entered our car, and promising not to stand up on our ride we began our descent.  One cable held out fate! 

On the way back up Reese astutely noticed that the cable didn’t actually touch a couple of the middle rollers.  That’s probably ok right?

At any rate we arrived back at the top safe and sound.  Our 5-minute ride that we had traveled all the way to South Dakota and back for, was complete!

Doris, who had busied herself reading the pamphlet while we were scaling the STEEP hill, pointed out that the cable had caught firs at least twice since it opened in 1882, crashing the cable car into the bottom of the hill. 

I’m super glad she didn’t read that before we got in and rode down the STEEP hill.

We headed back down the hill, in the van this time, on our way to the Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium.  We entered through the gift shop so I was happy!

The aquarium was very nice, right on the river with views of Illinois, Wisconsin and of course Iowa. 

Once again there was an observatory, but this time Doris chose not to go up.

It was getting late and we still had about a 2-½ hour to drive until we got home.

We crossed the bridge to Illinois (Girls won!  We Rule!) and decided to drive through Galena so Doris could see the city.  We also decided to stop for one last vacation ice cream cone (no wonder I gained weight!). 

It was close to 7 p.m. when we got close to St. Charles and started discussing dinner options.  After 9 days of eating out it’s near impossible to feel too enthusiastic about any option.  After providing several viable possibilities, we decided on Portillos.

Our vacation had come to a successful close and we had been delivered safely home.  Time for a nice meal and some rest.

So we get to Portillos and Tom orders the ribs, but there’s a 15-minute wait for ribs so he decides to get the BBQ chicken salad.  When we get the window however guess what…10-minute wait on the chicken.  Tom was none too thrilled.

So we wait the 10 minutes (the knowledge that he could have just gotten the ribs was not lost on us) and our meals are delivered to the car, but it’s wrong.

Tom’s done now.

He grabs the bags and storms into Portillos.  I take this opportunity to warn Reese that now would not be a good time to tease daddy about the order getting mixed up.

Apparently neither Tom nor the manager could explain the strange going ons through the drive through, but our order was fixed and off we went.

It was great to get back home to our dried out grass and enormous water bill.  Well, maybe not the water bill!

Thanks for taking this amazing trip with us.  We had a great time as you can see, and we hope you enjoyed it as well, and that it has inspired you to take your families to Mt. Rushmore soon.  No really.  There are some things I need you to get me from the gift shop!