Iowa became the 29th state to join the United States on December 28, 1846. The capital city is Des Moines. The highest point is Hawkeye Point at 1,670 feet.

Road Trip 2013 - Day 3 - June 13 - Iowa - Stop 2 (Indiana Dunes, De Immigrant, Amana Colonies, Des Moines, Madison County Roads)

Holliwell Bridge InteriorBridges of Madison County, Iowa (IA). The first planned destination for the third day of our road trip was in Madison County, Iowa. That is The Madison County! What do I mean by that? Remember Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood), Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep), and most importantly the mean yellow dog? Yes, this is the county where the movie The Bridges of Madison County was filmed (for the most part).

I only have a few photos to share with you. First, this was early in the day and quite a bit of road was ahead of us and we also managed to run into another group apparently following the bridges in a similar sequence. That made it more difficult to get a human-free photo of the bridges.

The first two photos in this post are from the Holliwell Bridge, the only covered bridge featured in the movie that I managed to photograph. We also visited other bridges but those were not in the movie.

Holliwell Bridge ExteriorBridges of Madison County, Iowa (IA). From my internet research I found that the county originally had 19 of them, of which only 6 remain. Aside for their natural fate some also fell victims to arson and burned down. An interesting fact that I learned that was not obvious to me was that they were named based on the closest resident. It makes a complete sense but I would not have thought of that. Not only did some of the bridges burn down due to arson, Francesca's house was burned in a fire on about a year after the Cedar Bridge was destroyed.

Below, I am listing the three bridges that were featured in the movie and three more that bring the total number to six. I've also listed the internet pages I found useful and an interesting read.

Movie Bridges:

1) Roseman Bridge in Winterset, IA, built 1883, renovated 1992; 2) Holliwell Bridge in Winterset, IA, built 1880, renovated 1995; 3) Cedar Bridge over Cedar Creek (where Francesca met Robert), built 1883, moved 1921, renovated 1998, destroyed by arsonist 2002, replica dedicated 2004

Cutler Donahoe BridgeBridges of Madison County, Iowa (IA). Three more (non-movie bridges):

1) Cutler-Donahoe Bridge in Winterset, IA (originally over the North River near Bevington), built 1870, moved 1970, renovated 1997; 2) Hogback Covered Bridge in Winterset, IA, built 1884, renovated 1992; 3) Imes Covered Bridge, St. Charles (originally by Patterson, moved in 1887 to Hanley, moved in 1977 to St. Charles), built 1970, moved twice, renovated 1997

Sources:

• Iowa on 50States.Com
• Madison County, Iowa - The Bridges of Madison County
• John Weeks' Highways, Byways, And Bridge Photography - The Bridges Of Madison County
• The Bridges of Madison County
• The Bridges of Madison County on Filmwerk

Equipment used:

• Nikon D600
• Nikon 24-85mm Nikkor Lens
• Promaster 72mm Circular Polarizing Filter
• Think Tank Speed Demon Waist Pack,  Petzl Zipka Plus 2 Headlamp (always in the bag just in case), SanDisk Extreme 32GB SD Cards
• Nikon Capture NX2

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