Randy and the Cat

My father-in-law is a pretty manly dude. He drives gigantic trucks through Wyoming, can fix anything, and eats entire triple Baconators without getting sick. He also really likes kitties. He puts them in cute little pink boxes and drives them all around the country to movie sites. I have proof.

I'm not really sure how Randy was elected to haul our cat across the country, but such was the way the dice were rolled. Actually, I'd say he got the better end of the deal since the other choice was to haul Zoe, who spends most of her time during car trips playing with annoying toys and smearing wet crackers all over the seats. When we got to The Field of Dreams movie site Randy was very good to follow Sara's explicit feline security instructions by leashing her up and walking her about. Our fellow roadside tourists did a lot of pointing and staring at the funny man dragging the cat on its leash.

Cats on a leash are pretty hilarious. Like every other cat in the world, Lucy is much better at sleeping than she is at performing any type of physical activity. She tried her hardest for about two minutes to clutch onto the asphalt as Randy pulled her along, but it proved to be far too much work. This is why Lucy was carried from base to base and into the outfield by her push-over humans. Cats are smarter than humans, as proven by their daily schedules.

You really ought to give Iowa a try

There are a lot of miles between Milwaukee and West Jordan, and every so often you just gotta stop and look at stuff. We've always been big fans of roadside attractions, so making a very short detour through Dyersville, Iowa was a must-do. As you've likely deduced from the sign pictured above, the baseball field from the 1989 film, Field of Dreams, is located in this corny little town.

By corny I mean full of corn. The corn stalks go on and on for miles and I can't help but wonder how all of it could possibly get planted and harvested in a single season, its quite the wonder. Dyersville is one of those little rural towns that girls always call romantic, causing their guys to rack their brains trying to figure out what's so romantic about tractors blocking the road and getting dirt all over your car. I'm beginning to believe that a girl's definition of romance is anything that's not spending another evening sitting on the couch watching reruns of Cheers. Maybe its the corn that is causing the romance. Might this be the answer to the age-old question of why popcorn is served at movie theatres? You get your woman off the couch, take her to a movie, and seal the deal with a big tub o' corn drenched in peanut oil. If I'd been old enough to date in 1989 I would have capitalized on The Field of Dreams, you got Dyersville, lots of corn, and Kevin Costner...it's the perfect blue prints for making out in the balcony. Oh yeah.

For those of you who haven't seen it, The F o' D is an excellent film. To think that we all stood on the very same field that was once trod upon by Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones and Ray Liotta is like a dream come true. Yep, the bleachers from the movie are still there, and the original farm house still stands. There's Sara with the cat in front of said house, and Randy and Diane atop said bleachers. Lucy was a very happy little feline because she thinks Kevin Costner is a dream boat and the best actor ever. Lucy also licks herself.

Packyderms and Palm Trees

In the days and months before they came out to help us move, Randy and Diane spent many hours playing tetris, in training to be the excellent truck packers that they are. We move cross-country via ABF, and their policy is pretty much $100 per foot of trailer space. Randy was able to keep it to 11 feet exactly, I think this was a result of him having sold his immortal soul in exchange for mad trucking skills. He has won awards, after all. He even tied everything back using ropes and the crazy sailor knots he learned while pirating the high seas. The little dude who came to pick up the truck even told Randy that this was the best packing job he had ever seen. I think I married into the right sort of family. At this very moment, only seven months after our last move, we have begun packing up our stuff again to move in to our new house on the south side of Seattle. I kid you not, we're flying Randy out just to help us move. What more could a man want than to spend two weeks of precious vacation meticulously shoving boxes into a truck. He's a good sport.

This is my little Sara standing in front of the palm tree she and her dad planted in the berm between our house and the church parking lot. We decided we didn't have the space or the wherewithal to transport some of our large house plants across the country, so why not donate them to the berm? I can just imagine the questions raised when the landscapers came later in the week to prune the hedges, only to find that several tropical plants had been immaculately conceived on the church grounds. Perhaps we'll be sainted. I wonder how they fared through the winter...I'm guessing they are no longer with us. Don't worry though, we were able to put several plants in our cars and on the truck, all of which lived, many of which are still living at their grandma's house in Utah. Ain't she a good sport. It was a gift to say thanks for helping us move Diane!

The Brewers Get Schooled

Here it is, the last blog post from Milwaukee. What better grand finale from the city we called home for nearly three years than one last Brewers game! This game was the night before we closed up the truck and hit the road. Here's Diane enjoying the playground in front of the ball park, Bernie's Dugout. She says the reason she went up there was to play with Zoe, but notice who is nowhere to be seen. She was not able to provide an explanation as to why she got up there by way of climbing up the slide.

Can't say this was the best Brewers game we've ever been to. I think the final run tally was like 14 to 2 in The Pirates' favor. It was a lot of fun to sit next to my mother-in-law who knew a surprisingly large amount about America's favorite past time. Does everyone in the world know more about baseball than me? There are very few things that I consider myself an expert in...maybe Defined Benefit Pension Plans and The Beatles...but that's about it. I may have chosen poorly when it came to fields of expertise. Its not often I'm able to impress guests at dinner parties with my intricate knowledge of the Pension Protection Act. But at least it pays the bills, not many jobs depend on knowing who managed the team that won the 1974 World Series.

Here we are in our favorite seats in the park. Yes, that is the back wall. This is a great place for us to sit because the wall creates a Zoe buffer that makes us only have to worry half as much about which of our unfortunate park peers will be getting Zoe drinks poured into their laps. We also like the back because its cheaper, and I have to save my money to make wagers on the sausage race.

And that's it. We're done with Milwaukee. That was a wild two years and ten months. We learned a lot about ourselves out there. For example, I learned that I like Italian Sausage way more than Bratwurst, but I'd trade a kidney for a spicy chorizo. Sara found out that baseball is her favorite professional sport, and that once Spring training starts, old man winter is finally on his way to his vacation home. Zoe learned how to say, "Waukesha", and that fireflies are much preferred to mosquitos. On to our next long term adventure, but not until we get that truck packed and make the 1,480 mile journey to West Jordan, Utah, our temporary home.