Corn and soybeans...cornering the market?

Not possible because EVERYONE is growing one or the other. In Illinois. In Iowa. In Nebraska. Corn. Soybeans. Corn. Soybeans.

The first picture was taken at the site location for the movie "Field of Dreams," near Dyresville, Iowa. "People will come, Ray." We did. It was pretty darn neat to see. The family who owns the land lives there, and have kept the site simple, and free for people to visit. We saw kids and dads pitching and hitting the ball. We walked out to the cornfield. It was blistering hot out, but that didn't matter. There was a certain peacefulness there...a little piece of heaven. I'm glad we stopped there.

Too bad we didn't have a ball and a couple of gloves ... Ger would have loved to have thrown a ball around that diamond!


From the Field of Dreams, we continued south and west and spent the next couple days at the Amana Colonies. Yes, there is a Whirlpool Amana plant there. The history of the villages, which you can read about on the linked website, is really interesting. It's really too bad it was soooo hot out and there was nothing special going on. We just missed the Christmas in July event the weekend before, and I'm sure that would have been quite the event! Besides doing some more shopping at the outlets at Williamsburg, we spent a good part of an afternoon walking around the village of Amana. We had lunch at the Ox Yoke Inn out on I-80 where I ate sauerkraut for the first time ever! With the brats and knackwurst, it was pretty darn good! So was the black cherry soda!

We checked out some of the shops, had ice cream, and got a package of brats for a dollar, courtesy of the token we received at the Amana Colonies RV Park. Seeing the coal-fired train just outside one of the villages was a little extra treat!

One of our granddaughters is a huge train fan; she would have loved this one!

We left Amana on Wednesday, and drove through the rest of Iowa (and more corn and soybeans -- we're beginning to wonder if farmers in the US grow anything else!) to our destination in Gretna, just outside Omaha.

The scale of flooding on the Missouri River that's still apparent is rather staggering when one thinks that it's been weeks since the flooding first began! Mother Nature really can be a pain!

We stopped at Omaha to see a couple friends from my interest in figure skating. We met them at a cafe called Jones Bros Cupcakes ostensibly for dinner. But the real draw was the cupcakes. Really.

From Omaha, we drove only a couple hours west to Grand Island, where we had a nice dinner with Jim Knight, who will be presenting to teacher-leaders and administrators in our school division in September. The conversation -- and the dinner -- was good, and I'm really looking forward to Jim's session in September!

Next stop is Rawlins, Wyoming -- only because Cheyenne is full to the rafters because of Frontier Days. Timing *is* everything!

As usual, all the photos can be found on Flickr.