Coming this summer: The Great Movie Location Tour!

So here it is, this is THE PLAN!

In trying to come up with something that would equal or be greater than the spectacle and wonder of Comic-Con, Rebecca teased at the concept of trying to go to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. This was a movie location we'd talked about visiting for the past two years and certainly one I've wanted to experience since I first saw "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in 1977. But with an entire week in July to fill where our trip to San Diego would normally fall, it suddenly dawned on us that we could not only visit one impactful site...but three!

Pulling in two more high profile filming locations, we began to map out a gi-normous trip that would take us to three places, one in Canada and two in the States, where a single theme of iconic emotion, drama and wonder would intersect.

On July 7 we'll be flying to Calgary in Alberta, Canada and a short drive to a small town called Blackie where just a couple miles north sits the Kent Farm from "Superman, The Movie". Jim Bowers of CapedWonder.com visited the place where young Clark Kent grew up and made the decision to leave and learn who he was, just last summer and it really stirred me to want to go there. Check out his incredible photos from the trip. I really think I'm gonna tear up when we arrive at this destination.

Two days later we'll take another flight to Rapid City, South Dakota followed by a two hour drive to Devil's Tower where in "Close Encounters", Richard Dreyfuss and Melinda Dillon find the object of their obsession and the secret government landing strip for visitors from another world. We definitely want to climb the same route up the side that they did in the movie and I know it's going to be amazing to look around the back side of the tower where that landing takes place in the film. Even though the entire sequence was shot in a hanger in Mobile, Alabama.

After spending a few days there to really explore, we'll board yet another flight to head to Dubuque, Iowa where a 45 minute drive will bring us to the baseball diamond where Kevin Costner hears the voice that tells him 'if you build it, he will come'...and proceeds to plow under part of his cornfield to create what will become a magical doorway to the past in "Field of Dreams". The site is a bona fide tourist location now and you can actually play baseball on the field!

Three amazing movie locations, hundreds of miles apart over the course of eight days. And if we can throw in a forth that's nearby we just might do that! Then, after experiencing an entire week of touching the icons of the screen we grew up with, we'll head back to LA on Sunday, July 15.

This is the event that, when it finally dawned on us we should do, completely eclipses where we might have been that same week. And even though there is some lingering regret about not heading to Comic-Con this summer, I think we're in for one hell of an adventure that will touch us, make us smile, bring us closer and let us touch places from movies we cherish so much.

I need to figure out a proper title for this trip because 'The Great Movie Location Tour' is just a little too generic. But for now it will do. I'll be updating with more details as we sort through and make them available.