Day 8

Emily woke up early to grab some of the free donuts that constitute the free continental breakfast at Janesville's Select Inn. Thus fortified, we packed the Taurus (recently christened "Goldie" for her bronzed lustre) and headed west through the bottom half of Dairy Country.

Wisconsin is beautiful. Emily was driving, which meant I was free to control the CD player and enjoy the scenery. The area is all rolling hills, farm houses, ridiculously large sky, and green grass. We took a detour in the early afternoon and drove around some backroads, where Emily tried to feed some disinterested horses and I tried to take artsy photographs of the horizon, with Em propped alongside the car like a model.

After crossing the Mississippi River, we pulled into Dubuque, Iowa. The town is built atop a hill, so the roads have steep ascents and it must be hell whenever there's snow. We got lunch at the Shot Tower Inn and continued west. Next stop: Dyersville, where "Field of Dreams" was shot. The baseball diamond is still there, nestled amongst the cornfields that cover Iowa like a blanket, and we wanted to throw the frisbee on the same red dirt once trod by James Earl Jones and Ray Liotta.

We got lost, of course. Cornfields become hypnotic after you've driven beside them for an entire day, and it's easy to space out and miss the sign that says "Field of Dreams Movie Site" with a giant arrow. But we eventually found our way to the field, which looks exactly how it did in the movie. Emily used a Porta-Potty for the first time on this trip, which may be considered a milestone by some people, and we got some exercise by running through the outfield.

After stopping at Strawberry Point to see the world's largest fiberglass strawberry (seriously), we stopped for the night at a retro-looking motel in Waverly, where the bedroom walls were covered by a mural of tropical sunset. You'd flip the light on, and the whole room would glow orange and yellow. Emily fell in love with the room, and we took some pictures with us sunbathing beneath the wallpaper's glow.

The motel owner told us to check out a local bar called The Feinting Goat. We did as instructed and soon learned that Iowa citizens are crazy about dairy -- the entire meal consisted of cheese, butter, alfredo, and the like. The waitress was peppy, though ("We're just so glad you decided to make Waverly one of the stops on your trip!"), and a few beers made us giddy and happy and thoroughly exhausted. Excellent day.