Friday, July 1, 2022- Dubuque, Iowa, and the Field of Dreams

"Is this heaven?
No, it's Iowa."
        ....Field of Dreams (1989)

     We are on our way west now.  Before we got to Iowa, though, an interesting opportunity presented itself.  We had been driving for about two hours this morning.  Scott needed a break and Ulysses S. Grant's home was right next to our route.  It was a perfect place for us to stop for a stretch and a stroll.  It is in Galena, Illinois, a very interesting and cute looking town left from the mid-19th Century.  Grant's home there was built just before the Civil War in 1860 and given to him as a gift after his victories in the Civil War and before his less-than-stellar presidency.   The building is relatively modest, considering this was the high point of his life.  It is a brick Italianate building.  We didn't tour the inside of the house just because we didn't want to spend that amount of time there, but we did stroll around the grounds.  In the rear of the house there was a display about the house itself as well as many interesting bits about the US Presidents.  For example, there was one long display case that had animals in it representing all of the Presidential pets.  (Julie would like a little more explanation about the hippo that Calvin Coolidge had.)  In front of the house was a statue of Julia Dent Grant, and further down was a bust of Ely Parker, the Seneca Indian that wrote out the terms of surrender at Appomattox.  (For some reason, General Parker's bust was not identified, but Scott recognized him immediately.)  The house overlooks the Galena River and the town itself, where there are lots of interesting looking buildings and shops.  We only got glimpses of the town as we continued on through, but Julie said she wanted to put Galena on our list of places to revisit someday.

     We crossed into Iowa when we crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River into Dubuque.  It is a new state for all four of us.  We needed some lunch, and Julie drove around Dubuque looking for "someplace cute."  There were many interesting buildings, including a grand court house and an elegant clock tower in the central town square, but not many businesses were open.  In fact, it seemed to us that the town was quite empty, considering it is Friday on a holiday weekend.  Eventually, Julie got a sub at a place called The Pickle Barrel and Emma got some Chinese at a nearby restaurant.  We then found a nice table on the sidewalk and ate outside.  It was not too warm to be outside and the overcast skies kept the sun from beating down.  For desert, the girls got cupcakes from a street vendor nearby.

     On the Smithsonian Channel's program Aerial America, we were introduced to two Dubuque sites that we thought would be fun to visit as we were passing through the town today, and they were both nice ways to spend the early afternoon.  The first was the funicular railway in town.  There is a steep bluff that runs parallel to the Mississippi River.  The downtown area of Dubuque is along the river and there is a nice residential section at the top of the cliff.  In the 1800s, a resident built this railway so that he was able to go home for lunch and still have time for a nap before returning to downtown.  We took the inclined railway up to the overlook above the town.  Abby exclaimed "This is fun!" as it started moving.  From the top, we were able to see all of downtown Dubuque, which isn't very large.  Emma said it is also a very brown city.  After admiring the view, we rode back down. The guy who was getting off before us said that the ride was terrifying, but it really wasn't that bad, even looking down the steep incline that we were descending, and Abby continued to say "This is fun!"

     The other stop we had chose from Aerial America is the nearby monument to Julien Dubuque.  He was the French Canadian who was the first white settler in what is now Iowa.  He had come to mine lead from the "Mines of Spain", so called because the mines are on the west bank of the Mississippi would have been in Spanish territory, not the United States, in those post-Revolutionary War years.  He befriended a local Native American named Pesota from the Mesquakie tribe.  Dubuque's monument is at the top of one of those bluffs along the Mississippi River, near his mines.  The monument itself is shaped like a castle rook from a chess board and includes his last resting place.  It was a pleasant spot to visit-- a very scenic spot in a pretty and quiet little park.  

      We got back into the car and rode about a half-hour to Dyersville to the Field of Dreams Movie Site.  This location includes the house, baseball diamond and cornfields that were featured in the 1989 movie with Kevin Costner.  In the movie, Terrance Mann tells Ray that there will be lines of people who will come to see his field and pay $20 to visit it.  That's what they ask for now as a donation to enter there.  There were quite a few people at the field, including teams who were gathering for a baseball tournament that will be played this Fourth of July weekend.  We had re-watched the movie shortly before coming here so that Emma would know where we were going.  She did not think much of the movie and didn't like the character that Kevin Costner played at all.   Scott loved strolling around here.  There was a line of guys who wanted to hit a ball on the field and lots of others playing catch nearby.  Since Scott wasn't going to be able to jog around the bases with Abby, he decided to have a couple of hotdogs there for his dinner instead.  He walked out to the cornfield line in the outfield.  There is a green mesh fence in front of the corn now, and he said that it would keep the ghosts from coming out of the corn, but Emma corrected him and said it was more about keeping the tourists from going in.  We sat on the bleachers there and watched everyone else while Abby played in the stones underneath.  We could see the stadium on the adjacent property where they now have an annual MLB game.  Scott bought the "official program" about the making of the movie.  By the way, the "Is this heaven?" line is used all over the place- on brochures and knick-knacks, t-shirts and posters.  We actually heard several people call out the question as they were arriving here, and of course, they always got the same answer- "No, this is Iowa!"  It's a great quote ,but it's getting a little played out.

     Our hotel tonight is in Cedar Rapids, so we had to drive another hour and a half or so to get here.  Once we arrived here, we stopped at a nearby Best Buy.  Before the trip, Scott had packed a bunch of DVDs to keep Abby entertained as we were driving, including some Peppa Pig and Blaze that he had bought just for this trip.  Unfortunately, we apparently left the DVD player on the dining room table at home, so we invested in a new one tonight.  Emma, Julie and Abby got dinner at the Subway next door.  Then, after we got moved into our room, Scott, Julie and Abby went down to the pool for a swim.  All in all, it has been a very relaxing and enjoyable day.