Field of Dreams, Effigy Mounds, and the bluff country glaciers missed
Northeast Iowa is the Driftless Area; the corner of the upper Midwest the last ice sheets missed, leaving unglaciated ridges and limestone bluffs standing hundreds of feet over the Mississippi. KDBQ Dubuque Regional is the air anchor. Nineteen nautical miles WNW is Dyersville and the Field of Dreams Movie Site; Universal built the diamond in the Lansing family's cornfield in July 1988, on a farm the family had held since 1906, and the set designers added the farmhouse's wrap-around porch for the picture. Both are still there. Major League Baseball's first regular-season game in Iowa was played on the site in 2021, Kevin Costner leading the players out through the corn. Run the river north about 45nm and the blufftops carry Effigy Mounds National Monument; 206 prehistoric earthworks, bear-shaped effigies among them, on the heights above the Mississippi. Then 55nm southwest to KCID Cedar Rapids for the Czech Village and the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, with the Amana Colonies nearby; seven communal villages founded by the Inspirationists in 1855. Three points across one of America's most geographically distinct regions.