Before we left, we had to see Dyersville’s claim to fame: the farm where they filmed Field of Dreams. The movie site has been preserved, and you can visit it for free. There are (paid) tours of the farmhouse, and a gift shop. We wandered the baseball field and met this elderly gentleman, appropriately dressed in a Chicago White Sox uniform, who was cheerfully posing for photographs.

There were signs warning people not to go too far into the cornfield (“People have gotten lost!” they proclaimed), but otherwise, you were free to wander the grounds, sit in the bleachers, run the bases, or pitch a ball across home plate. Russ had never seen the movie; I was trying to convey the gist of it when a woman stopped and, overhearing us, said ”But it’s about the power of following your dreams.” I couldn’t have said it better.