Marion Robert Morrison was born May 26, 1907 in Winterset, Madison County, Iowa. He is better known by his stage name, John Wayne, The Duke, one of my heroes of the big screen. We visited the tiny home place where he was born; a small 4 room house on a corner lot next door to the John Wayne memorabilia gift shop, which, incidentally, wasn't there when the Duke grew up here. In fact, he was 3 years old when his parents moved away from Winterset, so he didn't grow up here AT ALL! The gift shop actually wanted $7 to tour his house. That was more than the National Eagle Center wanted to have a personal encounter with BALD EAGLES!
What is it with homesteads for young super stars? At the Abe Lincoln boyhood home, Obama closed the outdoor toilets because money was tight in Washington (sequestering). And now, Baby Marion's family wants $7 to let you look inside a tiny house where a 3-YEAR OLD ran around, and made it clear NO PHOTOS ALLOWED! What's with that?? HE WAS ONLY 3!! *sigh. I figure that in BOTH CASES it's all about money! (We didn't go in).
The BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY; not a very moral movie, but it did star Clint Eastwood! We stopped by the Chamber of Commerce and picked up an area map. The kind gentleman behind the counter was eager to inform us about even more cool things to see and do in Winterset, besides John Wayne's birthplace and the 6 remaining covered bridges of Madison County.
We visited only three bridges as we needed to hit the road for York, Nebraska as soon as possible. Our first stop was to see Hogback Bridge, built in 1884. The second bridge was relocated to downtown Winterset. It's called Cutler-Donahue Bridge, built in 1870. The third and last was Roseman Bridge, built in 1883. It was made more famous by the 1995 movie that starred Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep.
From Winterset we made a beeline towards York, Nebraska. We were scheduled to take our good friend, Derek Poole, out to dinner at 5:00. Derek attends York Christian College and is one of our "kids" at our Oregon church. We picked him up at the college and headed for a restaurant that caters to "old people", according to Derek. As we gave him complete choice where he wanted to have dinner, we felt like this must be one of his favorite places to go.
We had a great dinner, even though they lost electrical power the whole time we sat there! Afterwards, Derek showed us around the York Campus, introducing us to some of his friends along the way.
We had a great visit! Derek seems to be doing well. He will get home about 4 days after we get home.
Tomorrow morning we will have breakfast with another young man from the Metro Church in Portland, then we head to the Black Hills of South Dakota!
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