We are so excited to be on the road again! We had lots of last minute chores to complete, getting the house ready to sit empty for the next two months. We must say that travel was easier when we didn't have a house and yard to worry about. But we were on the road before noon. We were very soon into Missouri, and two hours later we crossed the state line into Iowa--with freedom to flourish.
Our first Iowa stop was at the Maid-Rite store and cafe in Lamoni, Iowa. We were here to eat a maid-rite sandwich for lunch. It's a food made famous in Iowa, and we love trying the regional dishes around the country. A maid-rite is a loose meat sandwich. That means they brown ground beef with some seasonings and serve it on a bun. Not spectacular cuisine, but it was made famous here at the Maid-Rite Cafe.
More spectacular were the cinnamon rolls that can be purchased here. They were about the size of your face, and were still light and fluffy.
Our first day included a three-hour drive to our first campground, and we found a gem of a park in Winterset, Iowa. We were glad that this park had electrical hook-ups, because it was 94 degrees inside the trailer when we got set up. We needed our air-conditioner, and we can't run it with just our solar power. The city campground had lost a few trees, but they have turned those losses into carved art throughout the park.
They also had an English hedge maze in the park adjacent to the campground.
We took several dead ends within the maze before we found the sun dial at the center.
While the hedges were amazing for someone shorter, Mark could cheat and peer over the maze. So he won the race to the exit.
Denisa is a fan of the flower gardens, and this public park also had a nice bloom of purple cone flowers . . .
and wildflowers.
Winterset has a big public park, and a one-mile hike (or drive) takes visitors through the forest to Clark Tower. Denisa felt a little like Rapunzel, like she should let down her long hair from this stone tower window.
The native stone tower provides nice wondow views from the middle level . . .
and another set of steps provides even bigger sweeping views from the top of the turret.
Also within our park was this unusually large boulder with an unusually large inscription. We learned that it commemorates the discovery of a new kind of apple by a Quaker that moved here in 1856. Quite by accident, he propagated an unusually elongated apple with five bumps on the bottom that was so good it was named "Delicious." The Delicious became America's best-selling apple for over a century, and it started right here in Madison County, Iowa. In our lifetime we have eaten a lot of Delicious apples and now we know where they came from.
The other interesting part of our park is one of the famous Bridges of Madison County. The subject of a book and then a 1995 movie starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep, these bridges are sprinkled around the county. But the easiest to access is the Cutler-Dona bridge. It was built in 1870, and moved to this park in 1970--just in time for the first-ever Covered Bridge Festival. They are expecting thousands of people in Winterset for the festival this fall.
The town of Winterset's favorite son, Marion Robert Morrison, was born here on May 26, 1907. Most of us know him by his Hollywood name--John Wayne. His birthplace museum is in downtown Winterset.
The sidewalk out front is lined with granite tiles with the names of the 142 movies in which he had leading roles.
Adjacent to the museum is the four-room house where John Wayne was born. We visited town in the evening, when everything was closed. But the grounds were very interesting for a visit. . . and free.
Speaking of free, on the corner of this block rests Madison County's "Freedom Rock." An Iowa artist started this project to paint a boulder in every county in the state to commemorate the veterans from that area. This one was unique because it included pictures of John Wayne in his roles in military movies, while John Wayne never served in the military himself. On the other side of the rock were pictures of Madison County veterans that were POW's.
It was a good first stop on this first day of a two-month trip that will include eight states, two countries, five great lakes, and all the Six Flags parks in the midwest. We were back to our trailer in time for a cotton candy pink sunset. Have we mentioned how good it is to be on the road again?!?
