Days 9 & 10: Homecoming

In which we run out of things to do and invent a new driving game...

More on this guy later...

On Saturday morning, we woke to the sound of pouring rain. It's fitting that our trip started and ended with questionable weather. When I originally looked at the forecast, it looked like it was going to rain the entire time we were on vacation. With that in mind, the weather gods actually cooperated really well with our plans, for which I am grateful.

We had breakfast in the hotel that morning. I really wanted waffles. Those of you who have been reading for a long time may remember the one time I accidentally made waffles for everyone staying at the hotel in Niagara. I haven't been brave enough to try again since.

Well, the curse has been broken and I successfully made just one person's worth of waffle and ate it without incident. That should hold me over for the next decade or so.

Around 8am, we hit the road and I started looking for things to see. Our only planned stop for the day was Field of Dreams in Iowa. 

We passed the Flight 232 crash site and reading about that and various aviation safety protocols passed the time until the rain let up. 

Back in Iowa there was absolutely nothing to see or do except for this random Yellow Submarine.

Saturday's episode of "What Do People Do For Fun?"

For four and a half hours, we drove due east without making any turns whatsoever. That picture was the only one I took. There was literally nothing.

We did learn about the Manson Crater, but it's not something you can see so we kept driving. 

Local chain restaurants which we did not try included Pizza Ranch and Taco John's. Those were everywhere. 

In between wind turbines, Mike and I noticed that there were a disproportionate number of roadkill raccoons. That was just about the only thing to see. 

And that's how the game of Why Raccoon? was born. The rules are simple.

• Whoever spots the raccoon (dead or alive) has to ask, "Why raccoon?"
• The other person has to come up with a backstory about how the raccoon ended up where it did. The wilder, the better. 

For example, "Why raccoon?"
"That's not a raccoon. It's a possum in a raccoon costume. He's on his way to RacCON. He was trying to hitchhike and it didn't go well."

So that passed the time for a very long time. 

Just in time for lunch, Mike and I reached the Field of Dreams movie site. It was a $20 donation to get in. Except it wasn't really a donation. It was mandatory. I digress...

We found field parking and brought Bonnie with us while we explored the grounds.

It looked just like the film (duh)!

This is definitely a full blown tourist trap despite the signs stating that they aren't looking to monetize on the set. 

Mike and I were hungry and there's not much else to do so we got both overpriced ice cream and overpriced lunch. Both were tasty at least. 

"Great. Another attraction I don't care about."

This did make me chuckle.

The only thing left to do was take a tour of the farmhouse. Apparently this is not included in the admission "donation" so we paid another $46 online. 

It turns out we were the only ones to book online before the tour started. So then we stood around and waited for all the old folks and families to pay in cash and get their receipts printed. The tour guide was very apologetic.

The house tour was neat and I'm glad we did it. We learned lots of fun facts about the filming, the movie, and the back story. One of my favorite parts was learning about all the upgrades Hollywood did to the property. When the film was done, they asked the owner if he'd like them to put it back the way it was. Hell no!! Hahaha.

Our tour guide was a lot of fun, and I got my moment in the spotlight when he talked about the town building a permanent stadium not owned by the MLB. "If you build it, they will come?" I winked. Apparently it was the right audience for my bad humor and everybody laughed.

Meanwhile, Mike and I enjoyed people watching. 

There was a family with two young kids who looked super bored. I felt bad because the dad (our age or so) was reliving his glory days working for a minor league team. His son was not the least bit interested and kept rolling his eyes and wanting to go back outside. Mike and I exchanged sad glances. We both know that those will be treasured memories some day far too soon...

We were both pretty teary-eyed when they got to the part of the tour where they talked about Dwier Brown losing his father right before filming. 

There was also an ancient couple from the deep south on the tour. They were 90 if they were a day. It was really cute to see them still humoring each other. The rest of us couldn't understand most of what they were saying, but everyone smiled and nodded politely. Apparently the woman had once posed in her baseball uniform in front of some corn. Watching her husband proudly show off the photo to every person on the tour was heartwarming. 

That's all there was to do at Field of Dreams. Mike and I agreed it was a nice stop to break up the drive, and it checked the box for visiting Iowa. I definitely wouldn't go out of your way to check it out unless you really, really love the movie though. 

Things wrapped up quickly after that. By 3pm, we were entering Illinois and back on our side of the Mississippi. 

We passed through the town of Galena which was surprisingly beautiful and might have warranted further exploration if we were still looking for things to do. (We were not.)

Compared to Iowa, Illinois is a hopping Metropolis and we had things to read about as we drove. 

We did pass on the Sock Monkey Museum, but I'm betting that would have been a fun stop.

It didn't take long for things to start feeling more like the East Coast, starting with traffic. Of course we hit Chicago right at rush hour, which meant a detour on Route 290 through the West Suburbs. Along the way we saw what looked like a nasty motorcycle wreck. Ugh.

At 6pm, we entered Indiana with our sights set on Ohio. We "lost" another hour with the second time change. This put us back in our home time zone. 

By this point, we were starving, but not willing to lose any more time than we had to, so we picked a McDonald's not far off the highway. 

And that's how I manifested a big, fat raccoon who was very much alive and devouring leftovers from the garbage can by the front door.

"Why raccoon?" Mike asked.
"Oh, this one's easy. Because French Fries. Obviously."

I joked that this was my favorite meal of the whole trip. 

At some point, we agreed to stay in the same hotel we had stayed in on our first night. This would bookend the trip nicely. It was still a long way to go, but it felt nice to have a final destination.

As we drove through Ohio, a huge full moon hovered over the highway. Then, fireworks erupted to our left. There was a homecoming in a nearby town, but it felt like the world was celebrating us returning home. 

It was 12:30am by the time we arrived at the hotel. Of course, nothing can ever go smoothly for us, so there were rolling power outages that made the hotel lights flicker and shut down the computer system, delaying our check in. 

An exhausted husband and dog in the middle of the night.

Bonnie seemed to recognize that we were at the same hotel we'd started in and got really bouncy. I think she realized that we were heading home after all!

We were out cold a short while later. We agreed that it was worth the big push and long day in the car to only have a half day of driving between us and home.

Because we had nothing to do but go home the next day, we did not set an alarm. We enjoyed hotel breakfast, though sadly no French toast sticks this time. Then we got on the road around 9:30am. 

Aside from a convoy of army trucks carrying flammable liquid, there was absolutely nothing to report. We basically felt like, "Been there. Seen that." It did make the final miles through Pennsylvania drag quite a bit. 

"Our trees really do have trees," I commented softly at one point.

We made a beeline down Route 80 to 46 to 31... familiar as the backs of our hands.

And then, at 3pm, we arrived at the barn, where everything appeared to be peaceful.

When we arrived home a short while later, Bonnie was visibly delighted to be back. She checked on all her favorite toys, did a perimeter check of the yard, then flopped happily in the grass. 

Glad to be back. This dog is more well-traveled than the average American.

While we were away, our landlord kindly replaced our old, falling-down stairs with this thing of beauty:

That was a nice surprise.

To recap, this is what our trip looked like:

I'd say we put a sizable dent in our list.

This is what I've done to date. You can probably see which direction our next big trip is likely to take us...

This trip was a whirlwind and life changing in many ways. I spent a lot of time reflecting on our travels and plotting for next time. 

Unfortunately, before I could really have time to absorb the impact of our trip, events back home threw a wrench in our entire lives.

Now that I am caught up on our road trip, it's time to face the reality of blogging about what happened next. I plan to tell the entire story once I am able to do so.

Sadly, there is now a pending lawsuit and I have to be careful what I say in public spaces. 

Meanwhile, Max has been an absolute joy and my silver lining. I have had him for a full month already and he has blown me out of the water with his willingness to be my new partner. We've had several shenanigans already and I can't wait to write about them.

That leaves me with the conundrum of what to do with the in between. I got several rides in after I got home and before I lost the girls. I want to preserve those memories for posterity, but they are still very painful. 

Plus, I don't want to say anything that could complicate an already difficult situation. AND I don't want their photos used in any capacity.

Sadly... it appears the horses are gone, and I have no way of knowing what happened to them. I only hope they landed softly. 

...back to the point...

I will likely blog about my final rides with the mares on the hidden blog. I may share redacted versions of the more interesting stories here. 

I still have to do my June/July photo dumps, which will require some careful sifting.

But once I get to Max entering my life, I'll pick up here. 

All of this is just to say that there may be a lull in blogging for a bit. Don't worry... I haven't quit yet!