Dixon Pop Machine

There I was, traveling across the great state of Iowa in an absolutely torrential rain storm. My poor little rental car could hardly keep up with the mass of rainfall hitting my windshield at 70+ miles an hour. My podcast was being drowned out by the sound of rain thudding against the red paint of the Hyundai Kona, THUD THUD.Suddenly my Google Maps showed a new direction, Turn left towards Dixon it read. As I trust Google Maps and not apple maps, I exited the highway and traveled north, into huge swaths of farms. There were corn fields... fields of other kinds of plants that I did not know. I had heard such great things about the wondrous, Dixon Soda Pop Machine , and I knew it was my mission to traverse these lands and find it!Arriving at Dixon, I was impressed. A smaller town, with two main roads. As I approached from the south side of town, I crested the hill to reveal it, the Soda Pop Machine. You couldn 't miss it, with an LED sign, a barnhouse and two Pepsi vending machines. As I entered the HUGE parking lot, a fellow traveler bid their leave and drove off, hopefully with a Soda Pop of their own, and wonderful memories of the trip. Farewell! I said, inside of my car where they couldn 't possibly hear me, I hope you enjoyed your time! .Rolling to a stop on the loose gravely road of the parking lot, I prepared my belongings. Phone? Check! Jacket? Check! Raincoat? Whoops... 3 dollars? CHECK! I got out of the car, just as the rain quickly picked up again. Avoiding being drenched, I ran into the shelter of the barnhouse. The birds got scared of my erratic movement and started squawking loudly for all to hear. SO many cute animals were around, chickens and even rabbits quietly sitting in their area.Then I decided, It 's time to see what this Dixon Pop Machine is all about , and I braved the non-stop downpour. First I took pictures, so that future generations would know of my travels, and my struggles. I quickly got extremely wet from the rain, so I decided to choose my drink and get the heck out of the rain, as I had 8 more hours of driving still left in my day. I pulled out my 3 dollars. $2.00 to select a drink the display read, fantastic, I had just enough. I began to put in one dollar. I was elated to finally be getting a cool refreshing drink. I had heard only great things about these machines and couldn 't wait another second to get a drink! The machine pulled in the dollar as I fed it in VRRRRM... and quickly pushed it back out BEEP. Odd? I said, as I flattened out the dollar and tried again. VRRRRM.... BEEP... The machine wouldn 't accept my gift! I tried again with another dollar, and with another. VRRRRM.... BEEP.... Nothing. I pressed buttons, and tried flattening again and again to no avail. Desperate, I tried the machine next to it in hopes of better luck... Nothing. How could this be?! I traveled all this way. I said as the rain began to soak into the dollars, and make them limp and unable to be fed into the machines. After a few minutes of trying, I ran back to my trusty rental car, saddened by my inability to pay for a pop, but excited to take a drink of my warm coffee. I sat there and came to the conclusion that the soaked dollar bills, were no match for the great Dixon Pop Machine. For the Dixon Pop Machine would only accept the finest, most dry, and crisp dollar bills that one could offer. For which I had none.Defeated by this realization, and armed only with a $20 bill that I had found in my wallet (yet the machine did not accept anything over $1), I turned on my favorite podcast and left. Although I was saddened to not get a nice cold drink, I was happy to have traveled to this great town and to see all the wonderful animals. Sometimes in life, it really is the journey, not the destination or the soda pop that is most important. And with that heartwarming realization, I drove back into the storm, heading east on the soggy I-80...My advice? Make sure to come armed with crisp $1 bills or quart

Picked up my daughter from camp Liberty and this place just hit the spot for a quick drink and some entertainment.

The Dew was cold and hit the spot! It was also cheaper than you’d find at most Convenient Stores! I also enjoyed and was amazed by the variety of chickens in the adjacent display pens!Thank You, Kerry Meyer (and anyone else involved with this operation)! It made my day!

Loved the rabbits we actually stayed quite awhile petting them and wishing we could take one home. Only problem the Pepsi machine took my money and didn't give us any soda. We'd still go back just to see the bunnies.

Very quick service, ice cold drinks with no wait in line. Unlike all the other businesses requesting exact change or contactless payments I received no guff when here. Simple, easy to read menu. If you pull up close enough you can call it curbside pickup. No masks required because let's be honest, everyone in Dixon is distanced socially. Will definitely return here the next time I'm traveling through town and have forgotten to get a drink somewhere before I left actual civilization.