The Iowa Tour Continues

Not last Saturday but the one before, I was off work.  I know, amazing right?  Aside from being a little rainy, it was a beautiful day.  As you can see below, we were all comfortable with just a jacket, so we decided to go explore Winterset and see some of the Bridges of Madison County.  We started at the Madison County courthouse (which I don't seem to have any pics of) and it was amazing.  They had beautiful quilts and plaques to honor those from the county who had served in the wars and conflicts of our country's past.  The one from WWI struck me the most.  A generous woman had sewn one star to a quilt for every soul who served.  There were 600 of them!  I was amazed.  Such dedication and love.  We then ran across the beautiful church above and drove past John Wayne's house.  Just to say we had.  Then we started looking for Bridges.  We saw several, but the stop below was our excursion to Clark Tower.

 I had taken the kids here with our parents while in Law School ("the kids" being Brooklyn and Mason, obviously), but for some forgotten reason, Jon missed that trip.  That time, we drove right up to the tower; this time, we had a bit of a hike.  It was slightly longer than we anticipated, 3 miles round trip to be exact, but I enjoyed the exercise and even though the kids complained, they agreed the tower was pretty cool. 

 Once you get to the very top you can see for miles.  It is amazing.

 During our hike we found these two trees which had grown around each other.  It was pretty cool looking.

 Then we went to a different park and enjoyed the fall colors and saw several wild turkeys.  We also Forged a river.  The kids thought that was pretty cool.  Those pics are on Jon's phone.  I may have to upload those later.

This was my favorite bridge.  (Although, in all honesty, they all look very similar).  This one had been built in 1880 and had been restored and kept up and we were impressed by its construction.  Brooklyn was very put out that all the bridges were covered with graffiti.  She would huff and puff about so-and-so and how they had written their name on the bridge.  I was proud of her indignation but very glad she didn't notice the illustrations that went along with some of those names....

Ah, the "strike a pose" command is always entertaining.  I was reminded that Mason is not a fan of heights on this journey.  Walking across the bridges was not his favorite past time.  He would worry and stew about what was below the bridge (which in several cases was nothing) and what would happen if it suddenly fell out beneath him.  And he was not interested in being in the middle for any length of time...
Turns out, many of the pictures were on Jon's phone.  It was a great day and we thoroughly enjoyed exploring Iowa a little more.  Who knows why we've never done this before, but each available opportunity will be used from now on!