4181.5 (6.9 + 428.9) Miles to Fort Dodge, Iowa

View Larger Map

Spent the last few days with my friends Ben (who I was staying with) and Eric (the lead singer in Rebelution) in the Twin Cities. Saw sound check and pre-concert events. Then a good show on the Bright Side of Life Tour (upcoming shows that you should definitely see if you're in striking distance of these places: 8/18 in Chicago, 8/21 in Boston, 8/22 in NYC, 8/23 in Falls Church, VA). The rest was a pretty relaxing weekend with old friends and new ones (and found out I made a pretty good impression with my choice of scotch for the happy couple on Friday).

And then this morning, hit the road again. After a week between Chicago and Saint Paul with friends, I'm back on my own until I get to Seattle. Today (as you can see on the map above), I backtracked a little to the east before starting to head west across Iowa.

First writing from the road since Oklahoma:

Just past the 4,000 mile mark on my trip, I found a baseball diamond in the middle of a cornfield. I almost thought it was the "field of dreams" because I first got lost and wasn't sure I would find it. Coming around a curve in the road, however, I saw some big lights, and figured this had to be it. Now I'm sitting in the bleachers in front of the house, while a perpetual baseball game plays out in front of me.

Field of dreams. I'm looking out into the cornfields, and no old ballplayers are coming out onto the field. no ghosts actually inhabit this stretch of eastern Iowa, at least no ghosts that want to make themselves known. Kids of all ages take their turn at bat, from bunts to long flies, ground outs to home runs.

Dark clouds and red barns dot the vistas, and there's the sound of traffic in the distance. But here, in this little oasis of play (not "sport"), the game continues.

I was hoping to write something about dreams, but some days there's nothing to say about it. Dreams come and go, develop and are achieved and fail. They can be as dramatic and grand as climbing Everest, or as mundane and simple as being happy. Dreams are funny things like that, especially when they are the kind we don't control. The story in the movie is a bout fulfilling someone else's dream in order to achieve the dream you never knew you had. The story here today is about playing the game.

And who knows what dreams might develop from there?

No pictures today. If you want to see where I was, just watch Field of Dreams. The field looks exactly like it did in the movie. Probably because the movie was filmed there. Tomorrow the plan is to knock on the door of the Badlands.