A Trip to Iowa: Some Baseball, Conversation and Herbie!

 Over this past weekend, a friend of mine and I took a quick road trip down to southeastern Iowa to watch some baseball, fellowship and review some history.

 We traveled to Cedar Rapids, IA to watch the Kernels, the Minnesota Twins low-A affiliate, play baseball.

Here at bat is Royce Lewis, the Twins #1 overall draft pick in 2017.  He's a pretty good player, as two pitches after this at-bat he hit a home run.  The Kernels won this game 12-4.

After the game we went to Davenport, IA for the evening and morning of fellowship talking to friends of present and past, we traveled the next morning to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, the first one of its kind.

This is the entrance to the main gallery of the museum.  It took me about an hour and a half to get through looking at all aspects of Herbert Hoover's life.  Hoover lived quite the life:

1) From the humble beginnings of a boy who lost both parents by age 10;

2) to a rich mining consultant and engineer sought after around the world;

3) to a go-to man in organizing large humanitarian efforts in Europe;

4) to popular politician that eventually won a landslide Presidential election (by over 6 million votes in an election that only had about 36 million total votes);

5) to a humiliating term as President during the Great Depression;

6) to the reputation restoration of humanitarian work around the world.

 This is a replica of Hoover's office post-presidency at the Wardorf Hotel.

This is the old Quaker church that Hoover went to as a child in West Branch, IA.

This is the cottage where Hoover was born.  I dare say it's not more than 400 square feet.

Here's the living and dining room.

Hence, the bedroom where 4 of the 5 members of that Hoover family slept.  Perhaps a bit too cozy.

The Hoover gravesite where Prez Herbert and his wife, Lou Henry, are buried on top of a hill near the museum.  I was surprised that Prez Herbert lived till 90, a whole 30 years longer than Lou Henry.

So I say it was fruitful trip in many ways.  Keep learning, keep exploring because you never know what is ahead of you.