our trip to iowa: a quick photo tour.

so, this weekend, BoyCat and i went to iowa. the reason for this trip was twofold.

one, in my almost 26 years of living, i have never been west of the mississippi river. never. not even via plane. which is ridiculous, right? especially given that once i moved to chicago, that great american boundary sat just three hours to the west, taunting me. so this weekend, i finally said enough is enough. i'm crossing that sucker.

behold:



this is the view of the mississippi from the grounds of the grand harbor hotel in
dubuque, iowa. hear that? iowa. a.k.a. west of the mississippi! eat it, east of the mississippi - i made it! wahoo! (if i shared pictures of myself on this blog, you'd see one of me looking giddy for having accomplished such a feat, or if we had taken video, me doing a ridiculous happy dance, and pointing and whooping, and generally making an ass of myself.)

so. moving along. the "two" part of the twofold reason was this:



the field of dreams. now, call me cheesy, but field of dreams is my favorite movie ever. i have seen it more times than i can count - to the point that i know every shot and every line of dialogue. (a tangent: i'm curious if you all have movies like this as well - one particular film that you've seen to death, know like the back of your hand, but yet never tire of watching.) so of course, when i moved to the midwest, making a film fan pilgrimmage was high on the list of things to do. yet somehow for two years, we never got around to it. two months left in the area meant i had to get my ass in gear, and so we made the trek.



this place was fantastic. really. it was pretty amazing that over 15 years after field of dreams was released, on a random saturday in july, there were 30 or so people there when we pulled in the driveway. and it remained steady for the whole time we were there - as people left, more people just kept pulling in. there was even a wedding party that stopped by for pictures:



it was great to see the place, play some catch, peek into the cornfield and just wonder.

after leaving the field, we went back to our bed & breakfast in dubuque:



gothic, huh? it was really victorian and period-piece and out of the ordinary. (way to get the emphatically *not* victorian tv in this shot though, kate.) here's the bathtub:



nice. very nice.

on our way out of town, we spotted this place:



however, CatCat's namesake joint was not open, so we couldn't try it out. instead, we swung by the western store - its sign was a giant cowboy boot, how could we not? it was there that i was seized by a combination of heatstroke and pure insanity, and purchased these:



yes, those are $120 leather Durango cowboy boots. size 7M. and i love them.

while i was trying them on, i kept asking BoyCat, "am i crazy??" he posed the good question, "when are you ever going to buy cowboy boots in iowa again?" never, that's when. so i supported the local dubuque economy, and then we hit the road.

so there you have it. a thoroughly enjoyable jaunt to eastern iowa. and in a month, it's onward and upward to vegas...