In 2007 when we were first married Andy played his final year of baseball in the Seattle minor league system and I like a crazy gypsy woman followed him everywhere he went. We drove all the way to Arizona to Spring Training in hopes he would be sent to California and of course he was sent to Wisconsin. My mother in law who had spent her entire life chasing her own baseball husband offered to ride with her
only favorite daughter in law back across the country to the cheese capital of the world. After joking with my father in law about going up through Montana to get to Wisconsin he promptly went out and bought us the nicest atlas he could find. It was an amazing one that helped me multiple times while lost during the season. (Who would think Michigan City was in Indiana??) I was excited to take this cross-country adventure with Sharon I had one concerned: it was rumored with all the traveling she had done in her day she was a sucker for those brown tourist signs. I laid it down early, no stops along the way, except to see family in Texas. We had to make it to Wisconsin before Andy, get settled in, find me a job and we had no time for detours.
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| Magical!! |
We had stayed in Perryton to see family and then took off for the second leg of our adventure. It was April Fool's Day and we decided it would be hilarious to call people and tell them Andy got called up and they are sending him to California and we were turning around to drive back out west! While we thought it was a great joke, Andy did not, since it shed light on his misfortune of being sent to low A instead of high A. But people bought it and we all had a good laugh. Sharon was studying the atlas while we were driving through Iowa, "LORI! Look we're close to the Field of Dreams!" I could hardly believe it, having no idea it was a real place in Iowa. Sure enough in the tiniest print possible next to little red triangle read, "Field of Dreams" in Dyersville. Now this is a stop these two baseball wives had to make. They did not make it easy, thank goodness we had our atlas, since there were no brown signs whatsoever.
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| That smile was froze to my face |
I had left my camera in Arizona and I had always laughed at Sharon's fun saver she kept in her purse at all times (But I did take one with me to New Orleans last year!), I was thrilled she had it with her for this trip. April 1 was even the fields opening day! We were the first visitors of the season, the person working the souvenir barn seemed surprised and confused to see us. It was amazing, we sat on the bleachers, Sharon insisted I take the mound and we literally bought everything in the souvenir barn. Of course with it being April there wasn't any corn and it was freezing, it still was one of the neatest things I have done and much to my surprise my mother in law agrees. That coming from a woman that lived all over the country in 35 years of baseball I feel pretty special that she claims that to be one of her best trips! They built it, we came and had the best April Fool's Day ever.
