The Bridges of Madison County

Denisa read the book, and later watched the movie entitled, "The Bridges of Madison County." So of course we were going to see as many of those covered bridges as possible while we were visiting Madison County, Iowa.

We started our evening tour taking the scenic routes, with many miles of gravel roads. But that also meant that we got to see some of the local wildlife--deer and pheasant and dove--and miles of corn and soy beans.

Our first stop was the Roseman Bridge, featured in the book and movie. This was the bridge that Clint Eastwood asked Meryl Streep for directions to in the 1995 movie. We found it without Meryl's help this day.

We were surprised at how many people were visiting covered bridges on this hot afternoon. Four other cars pulled up while we were at the Roseman Bridge. One vacationing couple offered to take our picture together.

The bridge had just been painted before filming began, but the director wanted a more rustic look. So it was repainted in a way to make it more worn for the movie. After Hollywood left, they paid to have it repainted like new again. Mark wore his covered-bridge-red shirt to match this day.

Our second Madison County bridge was the Hogback. While most bridges were named after the neighboring land owner, this one was named after the Hogback ridge of hills than runs around the valley.

It was originally built in 1884, but like most of these bridges, it has been refurbished since. 

It was 7:30 p.m. by the time we arrived at the Hogback, which is four miles northwest of Winterset. We downloaded the "Coverd Bridges Scenic Byway" audio tour before we left town, and it automatically started giving us information about each bridge as we approached it.

The easiest bridge to see, was the one inside the city limits of Winterset, Iowa. We mentioned it in our blog last time, because the Cutler-Dona Bridge is actually inside the city-owned park where we were camping.

The book, "The Bridges of Madison County" became an overnight success when it was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show. The Cedar Bridge was featured on the cover of the book in 1992, and it was the site of Oprah's show that aired in 1993. The steps that Mark was standing on were built for the television show and the locals still call them the "Oprah steps."

It's the only bridge that vehicles can drive through, so of course we did. But the reason it can still handle vehicular traffic is that it is a relatively new bridge.

The first Cedar Bridge was built in 1883 for about $3,000. When it burned down from arson in 2002, it cost almost a million dollars to rebuild it. When an arsonist struck again in 2017, it was rebuilt a third time. That was when canisters of fire retardant were also installed in its roof.

Besides the covered bridges, we got a bonus one-lane metal bridge on this evening drive in the country.

Our final stop of the day was the Holliwell Bridge.

The Holliwell covered bridge was situated over a lovely creek, and we were enjoying beautiful Iowa weather this evening.

This bridge was built in 1880, and was also featured in the movie. 

At 110-feet in length, it's the longest bridge in Madison County.

Our drive through the country roads in Iowa led us to a wide variety of animals. Most of our encounters were too quick to take a picture. But we enjoyed watching a pair of skunks (from a distance), a mother racoon and her 3 babies, a flock of turkeys, and 38 deer (in groups of 1 to 4). Every time we would feel safe to drive these narrow country roads, another deer or two would run onto the road in front of us. Obviously, drivers must exercise care when going down these roads in the evening. All those animals were enjoying the acres of soybeans and corn that Iowa is famous for.

The sun was setting as we made our stop at the fifth bridge of Madison County. What a peaceful view of the country. Why, that's pretty enough to inspire a book and a movie!