- A short jaunt through Pennsylvania along Lake Erie on Interstate 90.
- Interstate 90 through Ohio. Drove through Cleveland, moved luggage from the top of the car to inside because of windy and, shall we say, "unstable" conditions.
- Continued on Interstate 90 through Indiana. More wind, South Bend, roadside devices that warned of animals crossing the highway, lots of nothingness, played the “What’s that smell?” game.
- Just our luck, after driving trough Gay, IN and entering East Chicago, IL, we hit the aftermath of massive thunderstorms and the beginning of Chicago rush hour traffic. Interstate 90 loops literally through the middle of Chicago along with several other highways that merge in the most inconvenient places (and probably tore up a number of neighborhoods). We watched CTA trains zip by and taunt us, stared at the Sears Tower in front of us and after two hours, we made it through the cluster.
- What seemed like the best meal/dinner we had eaten in years was at a Denny’s outside of Rockford, IL. Denny’s is a road traveler’s paradise because it serves any of their burgers made with Boca burgers. We must have been the happiest customers the waitresses had seen all day.
- From Rockford, we looped onto Route 20, a more local route through northwest Illinois. As the sun was setting and dusk settled in, and the fireflies dotted the rolling farmland and hills, it all looked insanely gorgeous. The reason we headed onto this less traveled trail was to visit two baseball monuments of sorts: Galena, IL (mentioned above) and Dyersville, Iowa. Galena was the stand-in town for Chisholm, MN (the home of Doc "Moonlight" Graham) in Field of Dreams and Dyersville is the home of the actual baseball field and farm house. We had planned to spend the night in Duboque, IA, right across the Mississippi River and home of a river boat and caisnos, but instead found an oasis – The Irish Cottage Hotel. If you are ever on Route 20 in northwest Illinois and need a place to crash for the evening that includes an Irish pub, a pool (where we were joined by a very nice lady who told us "if you pray to God two times, it will come true") and hot tub, all the cable channels weary travelers want to flip through and a complimentary breakfast basket of sugary breakfast pastries and fruits… for $80… this is the place.
Butterlamb Concurs!
Today we made the pilgrimage to the Field of Dreams site, crossing the Mississippi River from Illinois into Iowa. It was very odd to suddenly hear the radio stations change from W to K as their first letters...
Here are the photos from the actual field, and Butter Lamb was feeling good enough to make an appearance.
And yeah, Dan and I were there, too.
We then headed to Mason City, IA where we discovered delicious vegetarian sandwiches and a Barack Obama 2008 office, then drove up Interstate 35 onto Interstate 90 into Minnesota where Dan paid tribute to Bob Dylan by playing Highway 61. Minnesota was a lot of flat, windy farm land. With huge turbine wind mills!
We finally made it into South Dakota, and Butter Lamb wanted to take a look around a rest stop that featured a faux teepee.
South Dakota, as barren as Interstate 90 makes it look, is extremely beautiful, especially the hills surrounding the land around the Missouri River. Wall is certainly touristy (thank you, Wall Drug, which we are extremely excited to explore tomorrow morning before we head out to the Badlands and Mount Rushmore.)
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