Ready for the Long Haul
Our final day of the week long announcement tour began in Marshalltown, Iowa where we took the morning off from campaigning to attend New Hope Christian Church.
In the afternoon, we were back at it. Our first event was a fundraiser for State Rep. Pat Grassley at Pipac Centre on the Lake in Cedar Falls. We got a chance to meet his family and other grassroots supporters in Cedar Falls while our Dad spoke to the crowd there.
The next stop was very special to our Dad: Plainfield, IA. It’s where he lived from 1970–77. Our Grandpa Llew Walker was the Preacher at the first Baptist Church and our Uncle David was born in the neighboring town of Waverly. Naturally, our whole family came for the event.
Our Grandma Pat, being the saint that she is, still keeps in contact with folks from over 40 years ago when they lived there. Our grandpa and her actually drove out the night before from our home in Wauwatosa to attend a surprise party for an old friend of theirs. She brought along a batch of her storied chocolate chip cookies. Then they joined us at the Dietz Farm where our Dad spent a good amount of time when he was younger.
Mrs. Dietz jokingly asked our Dad if he brought his swimsuit along with him like he always use to. If we didn’t have another stop to get to we probably would’ve taken her up on that offer.
Plainfield’s population is roughly 430 people, but for such a small town, we still had over 100 folks turnout to greet us! Even our Dad’s 3rd grade teacher came to the event. We toured around the farm and our cousins, Isabella and Eva, had a chance to check out the calves with Mr. and Mrs. Dietz.
If you read Matt’s post from yesterday, you’ll remember that our Dad and brother collected donations to purchase a state flag to give to the Plainfield town hall back in the 70's. Our Dad was carrying around the picture of them from nearly 40 years ago. Of course, they decided it was as good a time to recreate that photo.
Our stop in Plainfield was a great time. Matt and I got to see part of our Dad’s roots. Our last stop on our 7 day tour was Dubuque.
Despite the fact we were 45 minutes late, we still had a huge turnout at Giese Manufacturing! We’re very grateful of all the supporters who stuck around to hear our Dad.
After our last event we stopped at a gas station with a Dairy Queen attached. After my Dad filled up the RV tank, we headed inside to celebrate National Ice Cream Day, a Holiday started in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan. Then it was on home to Madison, just a 90 minute drive away.
7 days, 6,983 miles.
We had quite the week of traveling. In Iowa, we visited 11 of 99 counties, not a bad start to our Full-Grassley!
Thanks for following along with us this past week and continue to join us on The Trail! We have a long road ahead of us but we’re ready! We hope you are too,
Alex
