Do they all look like this? The Bridges of Madison County and John Wayne's birthplace

Almost two and a half years ago, I took a little day trip down to Van Meter and Winterset, Iowa. I wrote a little about it in my movie blog (the good old days when I only had one blog). It was the heart of summer, hot as hell and me without a/c in the trusty Backer Tracker. I made a return visit with my very good friend, TB2 (not her real name, in case you were wondering). The impetus for this trip was to get a Turkey O'Toole from Bennigan's. Yes, we drove to Iowa for a sandwich. Since that sounds a little weird to say, we thought we should make a whole day of it and go see the new John Wayne Museum (under construction during my last visit) and the Bridges of Madison County, oh and the fall colors. That justified the 3 hour plus journey down, and then of course, we'd have to eat. We headed off to Winterset and after running into a few curtains of distinct and forceful agrarian smells, we made it. You see the small white house where a 13 pound baby boy later known as John Wayne was born, but you need to head to the museum for your ticket and admission sticker first. The museum is in stark contrast to the 19th century home, but it is a much better venue to display the Duke's artifacts. The admission for adults is $15 and includes a 10-15 minute film that is a montage of clips from Wayne's films. I think that's cool, but I would have appreciated a small narrative about his life; true you get snippets in the exhibits and in the house from the knowledgeable docents, but I think five minutes included in the montage would have been appropriate. You can wander the gift shop for free, and if you are a fan, there is something for you: movies, hats, shirts, chairs, all types of knick knacks. The exhibit area is an open space with such things as the eye patch from True Grit; Wayne's address book; letters about Wayne when the museum started up from celebrities like Lucille Ball, Kirk Douglas, Bob Hope and of course, Ronald Reagan; and his beloved co-star, the late Maureen O'Hara donated some of her own memorabilia from The Quiet Man.

 

We grabbed a free map that highlighted the Bridges of Madison County (BMC) and strategically planned our route. Most of the bridges are actually pretty easy to find, just follow the brown road signs with the different names of the bridges. But if you get turned around (the story of my life) it's handy to have your favorite mapping app handy. My friend was told to go to Clark Tower to get a great view of...Iowa. The tower is in City Park, and it's best to drive up there, just follow the signs and the winding path. The tower is on a high elevation, but the tower itself is no Eiffel Tower. There are stone steps going up one level, and then a steep and awkward iron ladder, going up was fine, coming down was not fun in my clown sized feet. I'm not sure I would encourage little kids or anyone with mobility issues to go up to the top. It was nice, but we weren't overwhelmed.

View from Clark Tower

In the city park is Cutler-Donahoe Covered Bridge; this was not the original location of the bridge, but it was re-located here 1979. One down. We next went to Holliwell Covered Bridge, then up to Cedar Covered Bridge. It was at Cedar Covered Bridge that we came upon two women who asked us "Do they all look like this?" We-ell, yeah, kinda. The look on her face said it all, 'It might be fun driving around in the sun, stopping at wineries and seeing bridges, but it's rainy and this sucks.' I totally made that up, but that's what her face said. Since we drove all that way, we were going to see every damned bridge. Most are only about 10 minutes apart and it's only that long because you're on gravel roads and can't go very fast (I suppose you could, but my car is still relatively new, so, no, we were not going fast). A couple of the bridges are near parks and you can launch (?) your kayak or canoe. Hogback was next, and then onto Roseman Covered Bridge, which from where we were was about 20-25 minutes away. There is a gift shop nearby which we didn't go into because we were on a mission. NEXT: Imes Covered Bridge which was about 30 minutes away. It is the oldest of the bridges, built in 1870. That was it. We enjoyed our visit to Madison County. I was schooled in the ways of country folk by my friend who grew up on a Minnesota farm, confirming my belief that I have been a city girl in this life and all previous lives. We saw animals like a dead snake and a live snake (we preferred the dead snake), a couple of deer, cows (duh), chickens, and a flock of turkeys. We were driving and our pictures of the turkeys didn't turn out, but that's because the turkeys walked off into the woods very quickly when they heard/saw us. It seemed ironic, or poor timing, that we were then on our way to eat a Turkey O'Toole.