When I last wrote, I teased this post with a panorama of some lush grass, red clay, white gravel and corn stalks. It was one of the cooler things I’d ever seen, as it’s a baseball field in the middle of a corn farm. Regardless of why it was built (for a pretty good movie), it was gorgeous looking. It probably had something to do with the weather (perfect) and my affinity to baseball in general (also perfect), but whatever the reason, I was really pleased with the experience.
For good measure:
That’s the view of the field and house (and part of the gift shop) from the left field bleachers. It’s super duper nice looking. I really can’t get over it. The color contrast and vivacity are just perfect for looking at.
We hung around for awhile (instead of playing catch, since the insurance company there won’t let the owners hand out gloves for borrowing) and lucked out. The ghost players (who are kind of sick of coming to the same place over and over for years on end) came out of the corn stalks and instead of playing, they offered to take a picture for us:
There weren’t actually ghosts. Ghosts don’t exist. Dur.
*Aside* – Does Field of Dreams get made now? If someone came up to a Hollywood exec and said, “hello, I have a great idea to adapt a book. It’s about a voice that talks to a crazy man. The message from the voice is very vague, but the man interprets it and decides to cut down a bunch of corn (which he needs to pay bills) and build a baseball field. Crazy, right? Well, it gets better. Once the field is built? Shoeless Joe Jackson and a bunch of other ghost baseball players emerge from the corn to play! Incredible! It’s a hit, no?” *Aside over*
Oh, and how can I forget? I ran the bases like a little child/ idiot:
It was fun. Amanda wanted in on the fun, so she did some Field of Dreams Outfield cartwheels:
Once we had finished soaking in the beauty of the scene at the Field of Dreams, it took a little while, as we both enjoyed it, we headed to another incredible Iowan attraction. It took a few hours on the road, and we made a couple of stops for pictures:
And this is one of the few of it’s kind in the country: a basilica:
After the few stops and few hours of driving (sometimes miles on dirt roads, hilarious) we finally made it to Strawberry Point Iowa. What’s in Strawberry Point Iowa? Dur, the world’s largest strawberry:
Amanda tried to pick it, but it’s made of plaster and stuck on top of a sign post. I’m not sure how they can claim that it’s the world’s largest strawberry, as it’s not a strawberry, but whatever. It was quirky.
Since we had been driving most of the day, it was time for some dinner in town:
As we walked in, we weren’t quite sure what we were ins tore for. Just kidding. We knew exactly what we were in store for: Some Back Home Country Cookin’. The only question was whether the name of the restaurant was apt or not.
I ordered (after a nice chat with some elderly locals) the ham steak, mashed potatoes with gravy and a freshly made roll.
I wouldn’t say it was “back home” per se, but it was definitely country style. It was pretty good, the ham was actually not too salty, which may have been a miracle (thanks Jesus), and the potatoes and gravy were tasty.
Dessert? Pie a la mode. I don’t even like pie, but Amanda wants to find some good pie.
This variety was strawberry (obviously) rhubarb pie with homemade crust. It tasted like a soggy fruit roll up. I had a few bites, finished up the ice cream and pushed the plate back to the middle of the table. Amanda, who again, likes pie, said it was pretty good. We don’t have the same taste is food.
After dinner, we drove for another three hours and reached out final Iowa stop. Before I tell you about it, here’s a picture of what we were driving into:
Not terrible.
We reached the destination town of West Bend around 9:45pm local time and went to, literally, the only hotel/inn/motel/halfway house in the town (or the surrounding empty roads) and headed inside.
The presumed owner of the hotel was an Indian (from India, not Native to America) fellow who’s son was helping him out for the evening. He took a look at Amanda and I and immediately asked if we wanted the Honeymoon Suite. I chuckled and declined. He then asked if we wanted one of the themed suites (safari, hunting, fishing, Americana, celebration, lighthouse, etc. I’m not kidding. Those were the suite themes). I laughed again and we declined.
After a horrific night’s sleep on a bed in which every spring poked into my back/hips/ribs, I snapped a picture of both our view form the room…:
…as well as the sign (so you know I’m not lying about the themed suite availability):
Once we had eaten some free breakfast, and talked with more elderly locals, we walked the 500 yards to West Bend’s world famous attraction: The Grotto of the Redemption. It’s basically piles and piles of mortar filled with rocks/crystals/stones built up over many years. once the main structure was completed, it was then filled with statues of saints/angels/Jesus/Jesus’ dad (his actual, earthly dad) and a bunch of other stuff. I took a million pictures, and so did Amanda, but I don’t feel like editing them in the car right now, so I chose the one that best represents what The Grotto of the Redemption is all about:
Then i edited two more. One super heavenly:
And one depicting the grave robber who stole Jesus’ body three days after he was nailed to some wood. Or maybe it’s Mary. We may never be sure:
After we finished touring the really incredible place (lots of chambers, lots of statues, lots of huge crystals and even the stations of the cross) I have to call someone. I didn’t have my cell phone with me, and even if I did, I doubt it would have worked way out there. What’s a fellow to do? Luckily, I was in super small town America, and thus, it has super quaint and charming stuff like phone booths:
I didn’t actually make a call. I was faking it. Sorry.
If you look closely at that picture, you can see a big fuzzy thing sticking out of my pocket. That big fuzzy thing is a microphone for my video camera. The camera was inside my sweatshirt pocket, in retrospect quite precariously, and the microphone was sticking out (since it was attached). When I exited the phone booth, I took a few steps and the relatively expensive camera, with the very expensive wide angle lens and the relatively expensive microphone attached to it fell out of my pocket. I peed myself briefly as I watched the camera hit the ground.
Yipes.
Luckily, the camera landed on the corner of a plastic cap over the lens and no damage was done. Nice work lens cap. Phew.
I changed my underpants, we piled back into the car and we were off to South Dakota. Solid work by Iowa entertaining us. I’ll write all about South Dakota the next time I get the chance to. My laptop battery is almost dead and my lap is a little too warm from the warm computer. I guess I should tease something to keep you coming back?
How about this?
Ooo. A vista of the plains. I bet you can’t wait to read what’s next. We’ll you’re going to have to, because updating this is a pain. I’ll keep writing in the car, but my internet access is hit or miss, so I can’t post everything all the time.
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