The Heartland

The past week has been filled with more driving than baseball, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have any good stories. The brief synopsis is KC-Field of Dreams-St. Louis-Memphis-Lynchburg, TN-Dallas/Ft. Worth-Denver. So for those interested in simply our geographical location, you are all caught up and skip ahead to the next post.

The Field of Dreams is located in a tiny farming town called Dyersville, which is in Northeast Iowa. After the day at the field we checked into a Super 8 and went to the local Diary Queen to spend the $10 the nice lady gave us at the Field (As mentioned in Geoff’s post). At the Diary Queen I struck up a conversation with the cashier;

Scott: So is your guy’s high school football team good?

Diary Queen Girl: (not as confused as she should be considering the obscurity of the question) Yeah, not bad, we won state a couple years ago.

Scott: Very nice, what type of defense …

Geoff (interrupting): So what is there to do in this town?

Scott: Yeah, like, is there a bar or anything like that?

Diary Queen Girl: Yeah, there is one up the street, but there isn’t much to do here in Dyersville. You guys should head to Dubuque. They have bars, places to play pool, a Wal-mart, lots of stuff to do there.

Scott: Thanks darlin’ you have been too kind. (everyone says darlin’ here, it’s great)

That is as accurate as can be – if we want to find something to do we should head to Dubuque because they have a Wal-mart. There is something romantic about the simplicity in their lives. Sure it is tragic that this girl thinks of Wal-mart as entertainment but it is so cool that their town doesn’t even have one.

The whole story has a sense of irony because we actually spent the following night in the parking lot of a Wal-mart. We spent the following night in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express, which is brilliant for any roadtripper because you can get free breakfast and coffee if you get up before nine. That is exactly what I did, it was glorious. I also made friends with these two ladies who were driving out to Knoxville that day – not sure why – but they were more than happy to tell me about their grandsons who play high school football (I was reading the West Tennessee High School Football Review). I also talked to a family of Hurricane Katrina evacuees. They had family in Kentucky and they were headed up there to live with them for the next couple of months. We didn’t drive South enough to see any real hurricane damage but we did see plenty of fallen trees and road signs and talked to several people scattered all across the Midwest who lost their homes. Everyone was in really good spirits though, and all of them were saying that all they lost was ‘just stuff’. Excellent perspective they all had – and having lived out of a van for 6 weeks both Geoff and I can agree that one doesn’t need many possessions in order to be happy.

One night we hung out in Memphis. We drove along the Mississippi River and took in the slow pace of the water which is mirrored by the attitude of the town folk. I love this city. It got pretty late and we were pretty hungry so we started driving around looking for an open restaurant. We noticed some lights so we parked the mini van, activated the security system, and began walking into downtown. It was a Wednesday night. We turned onto Beale Street and it was barricaded off – only pedestrians and motorcycles were allowed in. There must have been 300 bikes. It was insane. There was bar after bar after restaurant after bar and they were all packed. It was crazy. Let me repeat, it was a Wednesday night, about 10 pm, this town rocks. The night was just the perfect temperature to be outside and the streets were filled with jazz music and onlookers. We went into some burger place and just as we were finishing up our meal our waitress sat down next to me and began chatting it up. I quickly moved my ring to my left ring finger and then acted very gregarious and pleasant, yet I was still careful not to send mixed signals. After a few minutes she noticed my ring, asked about my wife, and then politely went back to work. I suppose that if you live in Arkansas long enough, as she did, that even two guys who have been on the road for over a month start to look good.

Just inside of Texas we stopped for some brunch at the Waffle House. That isn’t the right word, I don’t think people ‘brunch’ at the Waffle House, people brunch at Marie Calender’s after church on Sundays, but you get the idea. This place is an institution, clearly they know what they are doing, yet I am still puzzled by a few things. First, there were 7 women working and only two customers. I like personal attention and all, but this seems a bit ridiculous. Second, the waitress who took our order walked across the restaurant and then yelled our order at the cook. I guess this adds to the atmosphere to hear, ‘Two hashbrowns, scattered, smothered, and covered …’ but the cook was about 3 feet away from us. She heard us order. And we were the only people in the whole joint. The whole thing seemed kind of impractical and immature like when kids ignore each other – ‘Heather can you please tell Sherry she is ugly’ ‘Heather can you please tell Scott that is he stupid’ ‘Heather can you please tell Sherry I’m telling Mom on her’ – all and all, I still love the Waffle House, we both do.

On September 9^th we saw the Rangers play the A’s in Arlington, TX. The Rangers have a perfect stadium for Texas – it is massive and exposed yet intimate and friendly. It was one of, if not the finest of the new stadiums. I mentioned the date because as you all should know, it was the 40^th anniversary of Sandy Koufax’s perfect game. When I mentioned this to Geoff he told me he had heard enough about Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers. This is incomprehensible. This is like a kid saying they had enough dessert or a student saying they had enough summer vacation. It didn’t matter though because when I left the game I got a voice mail from my dad with only one message – Happy Perfect Game Anniversary. Geoff, however, was more than willing to celebrate with some Johnny Walker Blue Label. A perfect whiskey for a perfect game, the only way to honor the greatest southpaw in the game.

We then drove through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Eastern Colorado on our way to Denver. Geoff found the drive boring, and it kind of is, except that the landscape is mesmerizing. It is so flat it is supernatural. The farmhouses and silos seemed strategically placed as if they were put there by an artist or photographer. The Great Plains are aesthetically pleasing because they are truly one of a kind.

Western Kansas also brags Prairie Dog Land. Not only does Prairie Dog Land house the world’s largest prairie dog (duh) it also features over 300 other animals, including a baby buffalo and a cow with 6 legs. The owner of Prairie Dog Land, a portly man wearing a rattlesnake t-shirt, told me some of his animals will be on Ripley’s Believe it or Not in the fall. I already have it TiVoed. Although I could write another page commenting on the proprietor of Prairie Dog Land I will restrain because I, too, own a rattlesnake t-shirt. Even though I have a bachelor’s degree in engineering I may end up in West Kansas running some kind of freak show, it is the curse of the shirt, so I will leave my kind alone.