Iowa Vacation (Part 5)

Thursday morning we woke up early and dressed for a long day of trips (some we knew about, and some were a surprise to us).  Had a breakfast at IHOP which actually was a very good thing since Grace was not quite in the mood to eat at the moment, I was able to take her pancakes with us and feed them to her on the road.

Chris and Katie drove separately, so we all piled into our respective cars and headed down the road to a location unknown to us.  After about an hour of driving we began to see signs of "Welcome to the Field of Dreams."  It was not until we were turning into the parking lot that I realized that we were at the movie set location of Field of Dreams!

 

Now we realized one more reason why Steve and Sue wanted to watch Field Of Dreams earlier on in the week.

We all got out of the cars, but the surprise did not end there, Steve went to the trunk of the car and pulled out three baseball gloves a bunch of baseballs and two soft nerf-like balls for Grace and Ellie.  And off we went to play baseball on the movie site :)

 

 Grace and I chased after her ball, but more than anything we ran the bases.  We also went to the cornfield and took a step or two in, but we did not disappear into the corn like the players do in the movie.... :(

Yes, that is the house and the bleachers from the movie!  I think that was the neatest surprise that they planned for us.  Very unexpected and very memorable.

Following the trip to the Field Of Dreams, we piled into the cars once again and this time our car (Matt, Grace, Steve, Sue and I) went to Backbone Park for a picnic lunch while Chris, Katie and Ellie headed back to Waterloo for Ellie's nap (and unknown to us all at the time...to change rooms at the hotel).

There were not many people at the park at all so we had the playground structures all to ourselves and Grace loved it that way.  She ate on the run (literally).  She went up ladders, down slides, back and forth on the swings, and chased bubbles.  It was a great time and a wonderful end to a great day trip.  

 

And to finish off (a quote from Field of Dreams...a good one to end today's post with)

"Is this heaven?  No, it's Iowa!"