To the Midwest, James!

Even though my mom and I were kinda bummed to leave Chicago, we were excited for the things the awaited us on our journey!  Busting out my handy dandy travel book, we found lots of random little things to stop and see as we made our way west.  The first of which was a quick stop in Freeport, Ill. where we grabbed monster ice cream cones from the cutest old fashioned ice cream parlor/diner ever and scoped out the site of the famous Lincoln v. Douglas debate that took place in the area.  Encircling this park and the sort of funny statue of Lincoln and Douglas debating, there is a great chronology of the events surrounding the debate and election (for senate).

 

After getting our fill of debates and ice cream and stretching our legs, we hopped back in the car and headed toward picturesque Galena, where we toured the home (one of them, anyway) of war hero and president, Ulysses S. Grant.  The house is very well preserved, with a lot of original objects still inside, and the tour guides are very nice and informative.  It was definitely a worthwhile stop on the road home :)

 

After touring the Grants' home, we shopped in adorable Galena's adorable shops and grabbed some lunch. 

And shortly thereafter, we crossed the Mighty Mississippi to enter Iowa.  

To be honest, I had pretty low expectations for Iowa.  I though, bleh. Miles and miles of nothing but grassland.  How boring.  But actually, it was miles and miles of corn fields, and not only were they are their respective farms beautiful, it really wasn't boring at all.  Iowa comes off looking clean, well kept, and very cute.  Some of the many awesome farms we passed along the way are here:

Oh, and did I mention we (obviously) stopped in Dyersville to check out the actual Field of Dreams movie site?!?!  Enough said.  But really, it was awesome!  It looks exactly like it does in the movie, with the house and all.  It's so well maintained and we couldn't have been there on a more perfect day: sunny, hot, blue skies without a cloud to be seen.  We had fun cheering from the stands, running the bases, and sliding into home. :)

Post Field of Dreams, we headed straight out to Fort Dodge, which is where we planned to stay the night.  After sitting in the car all day, we were excited our hotel had a cool pool and a hot hot jacuzzi, which we used to soak out some of the knots in our backs.  Then we crashed for the night.

The next morning, we decided to actually check out Fort Dodge, which turned out to be very cool.  It's basically a recreation of buildings from both the time when Fort Dodge was created (as an outpost for protection against Indians) through probably the 1950's or so.  It's actually sort of eclectic but also very well done.  My mom and I had a blast going through all the buildings :)

Oldest/original building:

 Mom being a teacher in the single-room school house:

 Shopping at the general store:

 Fun in jail:

At the end of the "block":

 In to the "fort" fort:

Ahhhhh, it's the Cardiff Giant!!!! hoax...Long story short, a dude carved a giant out of gypsum (which is found in this area of Iowa), buried it in NY, uncovered it, and claimed to have found the petrified remains of a giant, proving they existed.  Despite being proven as a hoax, it (or a second fake one) was carried around the country by P.T. Barnum!  This is not the original, but another duplicate created for the museum.  I mean, cough, it is THE Cardiff Giant.....for real!

After hanging out Fort Dodge for far too long, we hit the road and more or less went straight through to Chadron, Nebraska...

-ENCM