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Published: August 16th 2015
…we left the casino behind continuing our travels west. Today brought us across the state of Illinois, across the northeast corner of Iowa and up into Minnesota where we parking lot camped for the night. The day would have been another boring travel day had it not been for Mike’s curiosity. He did some research to see how far out of the way Dyersville, Iowa was from our planned route…only a few miles.
He added The Field of Dreams movie site to our itinerary! I was so excited when he told me that; I love the movie. It looks just the way it did in the movie. With today being a weekday, the crowd was small. There were just a handful of families, couples and trios of friends. The weather was perfect, too. They have a small area for RV parking so there were no issues with that.
I’m so glad we brought our gloves on this road trip. There was a small souvenir stand to the right of the house at the edge of the dirt parking lot where you can buy all kinds of Field of Dreams stuff…including baseballs (although they were out of the Plexiglass ball
cases). Of course we bought a ball. There was a dad pitching to his kids so we headed to right field to play catch. We played until Mike’s arm got sore. During our break, we took pictures of the house, the field and of course each other just inside the corn field.
Also in the parking lot, near the souvenir stand (which also sold ice cream treats…perfect on a day like today) there was an information board about the family that owned the property at the time the film was made, how the farm was chosen and fun facts about the movie itself.
We were walking in from the corn in center field, skirting the infield toward third base when we passed three gentlemen, two of whom were wearing Cubs shirts. One of the two men had a Wrigley Field baseball cap on. In passing I said, “Hey! We were just there yesterday.” Thus began a long conversation with them about baseball, the movie, where we were from… It was a lot of fun talking baseball with them. The guy with the Wrigley hat knew where Marysville is. He visited friends for a few days in Arlington last
year and happened to arrive the day before the slide. He knows the current occupants of the house so he and his friends were able to go inside the picket fence and get pictures on the porch swing. He also went inside and took several pictures of the house and the field from various windows in the house. He told us that there’s a possibility that there will be a baseball and softball complex built nearby. I don’t know how I feel about that. It could ruin the purity of the place. I mean, you really have to be a baseball fan and purist to find the field in the first place and truly appreciate what it represents. There are no signs from the interstate, highways or even the turnoff to Lansing Rd. The only signage is where you actually turn into the parking lot. It is, after all, just a backstop, some bases and grass next to a corn field. The average person would probably get bored in a matter of minutes. We were there for an hour and a half.
The families all had their turns pitching, batting and running the bases. The mound was vacant. Mike
and I were sitting in the bleachers along the first base line (the ones in the movie) and had decided we should get going. Before we left we decided to take our turn on the mound. Mike pitched, I caught. He did pretty good…probably walked the batter, but at least he didn’t bounce it in front of the plate. He stopped after six or eight pitches and we met halfway. He asked me if I wanted a turn. I didn’t at first, but reconsidered. You can’t go there and not throw, right? I’d never pitched a baseball from a mound before. I just hoped I didn’t embarrass myself. I threw five pitches. One was actually a strike. Of course it was a big ol’ meatball I served up and if there was an actual batter they would have crushed it deep into the corn. My other pitches were mostly high. I’ll have to work on my release point.
The time was ticking by, we really needed to get back on the road. I put the ball with its official Field of Dreams dirt back in the plastic bag it came in (glad there were no garbage cans readily available)
and set it in the big bag with our other souvenirs from the trip.
On to WalMart.
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Yep, you're favorite brother again
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Too Cool
I got goosebumps looking at your pictures! I love that movie too!