Two years ago I received the perfect birthday gift — a bucket list road trip to the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. We were going to Iowa and I couldn’t have been more excited. The trip — all 17 days worth — was even more fun than I could have imagined.
We left Pasadena in late June 2022. Stops included the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, Utah, two days in beautiful Glenwood Springs, Colorado, two more days in Denver, a long run to Lincoln, Nebraska and several days in Dubuque, Iowa, which overlooks the Mississippi River and is down the road from Dyersville. I wrote about the trip that summer and over the next few weeks plan to include some of those posts here. I am looking forward to reliving that trip and hope you enjoy it.
Now for some background:
Field of Dreams is the title of a
1989 Kevin Costner movie. The movie site, including corn fields, baseball diamond and farmhouse, have been preserved, same as they were when the movie was filmed. Of course, no corn or baseball field or farmhouse warrants a 2,000- mile road trip. But, add in the movie’s magical story of redemption spun around America’s Pastime, family, and rich Iowa soil — now that’s another matter.
When I told others of my bucket list road trip, I typically got two equally emphatic answers. Many just didn’t get it and politely asked “where?” “what?” or “why?” But, those who got it really got it and shared my excitement. One wanted to go along (to which I said “no”) another wanted to nominate my wife for sainthood (to which I said “yes”).
Planning the trip, as they say, is half the fun and we took three months researching big cities, small towns, places to stay, coffee houses to visit, games to see, and the like. The Internet is full of You Tubes and other posts recording visits to the Field of Dreams. But, we found little documenting an actual road trip to the Field, much less a road trip from southern California to Dyersville, Iowa. Who would do such a thing? So, in the next few posts, I am going to address that glaring hole the Internet and talk about our trip, the stops we made and interesting places we saw.
Just so you know, near simultaneous to our trip east,
professional journalists were on their own road trip heading west to the Field of Dreams. Baseball writers
Sam Dykstra and
Benjamin Hill started in New York and did their own road trip to Dyersville. Dykstra’s journal of the trip along with some beautiful photography is at
Major League Baseball’s site here. 
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