Saturday, July 5, 2008

Bridges of Madison County


Today we had a very slow start.  We had stayed the night in a Walmart shopping center so we decided to go to Sams Club, Best Buy and Toys R US.  We finally started driving around 3 pm.  On our drive we stopped at the Freedom rock to see the art work of Ray "Bubba" Sorensen.  Every year he paints a new patriotic theme.  It was really quit impressive how detailed the painting was.  After the rock stop we headed to Madison County,  you know from the book and movie, "The Bridges of Madison County."  We went to the town square first which reminded us of the Back to the Future movie town square.  We were waiting for a Dolorian to go speeding toward the courthouse.  We then drove to the Cutler-Donahoe Covered Bridge.  It was very pretty but I was very disappointed with all the graffiti that lined the inside of the bridge.  It is really to bad that people have destroyed such a beautiful piece of history.  We then drove by the home of John Wayne.  It was very cute.  After that brief stop we had a gorgeous drive thru the country on our way to another covered bridge.  The Imes Bridge was as beautiful as the last one on the outside but it to was covered in graffiti on the inside. The two bridges we saw were the 2 earliest bridges.  They were both erected in 1870.  I'm glad we had a chance to see 2 of the remaining 6 bridges.  
After the bridges we continued our drive into Des Moines.  We got lucky to find a spot at the Cutty's Campground.  They have 550 sites but were totally packed for the 4th of July weekend.  This is a really cool campground with a small lake and 3 pools, a sauna and a jacuzzi.  They even had an impressive firework display tonight that we arrived just in time to see.