As something special for Virginia’s birthday, we decided to attempt a fall foliage tour. Here in the central plains, that can be a real challenge! We settled on south central Iowa, along I-35 between Kansas City and Des Moines, because the web-sites said the leaves in the area would be at their peak that weekend.I also remembered that area as the site of the Bridges of Madison Country. Most people know the story from the 1995 film based on the best-selling novel by Robert James Waller. The film is set in the summer of 1965. It tells the story of Francesca (Meryl Streep), a lonely Italian immigrant Iowa farmwife. While her husband and children are away briefly, she meets and falls in love with a photographer (Clint Eastwood) who has come to Madison County to create a photographic essay for National Geographic on the covered bridges. Their four day torrid romance is documented in a diary discovered by her children after her death.
We rented the DVD beforehand so we would know the story and settings. Our first stop was at the Imes Bridge in St Charles Iowa, built in 1870.
(As you follow this blog, click on older posts when getting to the bottom of the page. Eventually, you get to the 25th picture called "On the Grounds of State Capital" and that is the end. You can also click on the pictures to see larger versions.)
