13 Jul 2008
Dyersville, Iowa
I'm sure it will be a great disappointment when we visit The Field. It's too early for the corn to be high enough to hide the ghosts - corn had a bad year in Iowa anyway. But, we had to stop by.
Dyersville is just a little Iowa village, with some terrific points of interest:
- The Field of Dreams movie site, where the Kevin Costner movie was filmed is apparently still there - not commercialized nor for rent. Just there. Bring your own bat and ball.
- The National Farm Toy Museum and the RC2 (formerly Ertl) Outlet Store - we may spend some money here guys...
- The St. Francis Xavier Basilica was worth the visit all by itself. Mass is still done in Latin (which, speaking as an outsider, is the way it should be! Whatever happened to tradition?) - people come from miles and miles around to attend. It is gorgeous, besides! We felt it matched any of those European beauties. (See our Picasa link above. The photos didn't look as good in a slide show. I have to start remembering that photos are better in the slide show when they are horizontal, not vertical.)
Our campground is an adventure, in and of itself. This area was part of the massive floods a month ago. I could find no RV park in or about Dyersville, so we opted for the county park. The same county park that has no address nor directions in any book. Nor a review on any of my normal check-it-out sites. So, we came here anyway. I figured out about where it should be. Did I call? No. Did we just show up on Sunday afternoon? Yes. Did we continue on past the "Pavement Ends" sign? Yes. Do we have a 40' coach and a tow car that don't back up? Yes.
And then we meandered down (literally) a very narrow country road into the low-hanging trees, and then up a little hill, around a corner, across the extremely narrow one-lane bridge with no load limit sign on it, and dropped down into a terrific little campground.
The narrow little bridge... and below - the footings...
Last month it was a terrific little lake, from what people we've talked to say. The debris is still very evident along the creek/river - huge trees gave up their lives and roots. Much of it piled against the footings of that same bridge that we have to traverse going out. There are 30 & 15 amp plugs at each site, and a water connection.
Half a dozen sites have had gravel laid as a base, so we don't sink into the still-wet grass. There is a dump at the central building, a nice little playground and portable toilets. What more can you ask for? Of course, there is one other thing - yes, the satellite dishes both work! Life is good!!
Photos: the other end of the campground; Pugs sits in all his glory in a green field - you can't see the gravel under him, or he'd sink to his knees.
And, as a special present tonight, the fireflies came out in droves to entertain us. Fantastic!
"Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to
hope for." ~ Joseph Addison
Hi Beth, Jeez what an adventure over that bridge! You guys are BRAVE. You're taking a route we contemplated but now we're just going to zoom through MN to WI and ILL over the next 6 days. We'll be in Gurnee, Illinois for a few weeks. I'm enjoying your blogs :) Hugs, Joan
Posted by: Joan Weise | July 15, 2008 at 09:16 AM