WINTERSET IOWA, THE HOME OF FONS & PORTER QUILTING, THE IOWA QUILT MUSEUM, JOHN WAYNE AND THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY

 We have been in this area for 3 days and I think we have seen everything there is to see. I didn't realize initially what was here. I knew the Fons and Porter Love of Quilting Magazine was published here and there was a small quilt museum, but for such a tiny place there is much more.

The countryside was littered with farms, windmills, corn fields and lots of dusty dirt roads.

We arrived on Saturday, Sept 25th. The CG is the KOA West Des Moines, IOWA and it was jammed packed. It turned out they were having a Halloween event here with a party, treat or treat, costume contest and more. It was full of kids and parents and there wasn't an empty site any where. I was a fun event for the kids and fun to see the kids all dressed up.

We decided to go out to eat at Brickyard burgers and Brews. I had a great hamburger and David had a chicken sandwich that he said was very good.

The next day in the afternoon we went to the Iowa Quilt Museum which was housed in an old J C Penney store downtown Winterset across from the Courthouse.

They had some beautiful quilts hanging, mostly antiques that were hand quilted.

This exhibit was owned by Mary Barton who was not a big quilter herself , but she was a great collector. Most of them were made by one person, but hand quilted by a group.

                                                This Hawaiian quilt was beautifully done.

                                This one looked very familiar. I think I've seen it in a magazine before.

                            They had a bed turning where you could put on a white glove and look thru the quilts.

This log cabin had 1/2" strips and it's another one I have seen in a magazine.

After the quilt museum we walked around the corner and visited the John Wayne Museum.

It was a very nice museum and they were in the process of adding a new area.

They had a nice gift shop, a movie about John Wayne's movies and the actual museum.

They had lots of memorabilia, including the wagon from the movie The Quiet Man and Maureen O Hara's beautiful knitted shawl.

After the museum, we went around the corner to his birthplace. He was born in the house that his parents rented and lived there for 2 years before moving to a nearby area called Earlham. His father worked in the pharmacy in Winterset and due to problems with his lungs he decided to move west to California when John (Marion Michael Morrison) was seven and his younger  brother Robert was 3. His dogs name was DUKE.

 

It was a very small house, but they had lots of pictures and info on John Wayne's life here.

On Monday we drove to 6 of the covered bridges in Madison County. Only 2 were on paved roads and it was pretty dusty.

This is the Hogback Covered Bridge and you can see it has the original floor.

                                            This is Cedar Bridge. The original was destroyed and so it was rebuilt.

This is the Cutler-Donahue Bridge built in 1870 and sits in Winterset City Park.

The Holliwell  Bridge, built in 1880 and 110 ft long.

                                                                  The Imes Bridge is the oldest.

Look what we saw in St Charles. Of course it wasn't really open.

 The Roseman Bridge, the most popular due to the movie Bridges of Madison County.

After looking at bridges we went for lunch at a downtown Winterset Mexican restaurant and the food was good. Across the street was a Ben Franklin variety  store. They did indeed have everything, including fabric. I needed a zipper and some ric rac and they had it.

When we walked back we got a good look at the car. YIKES!!!

We needed a car wash.

Tuesday, we leave for Pender, NE.

KIELER, WISCONSIN

Our next stop as we make our round about journey towards home is in Kieler, Wisconsin. This campground is called The Rustic Barn and it is in the middle of nothing. It does have beautiful views of the rolling hills and farm lands, The camp host was very nice and quickly took us to our site without us having to leave our MH. It's one of the nicest kept campgrounds we have been in. 

The camps store and office is very convenient and in the basement there is a shelter should there be a storm or tornado.. Also, there is a small chapel available complete with Bibles, pews, etc. It is open for anyone, any time.  It is a lovely little chapel with stain glassed windows and a view of the countryside through the large window in the back,

Bentley really enjoyed his stroll around this campground, even though it was a bit windy. The only negative is that the pull thru sites are crammed right next to each other.

I did finally get a chance to do some laundry in this CG. The last 2 CG had no laundry and we were running out of clean clothes. When I went to the office the camp host told me to go to Nick's in Cuba City for breakfast. So on Friday we drove about 8 miles to Cuba City for breakfast. Boy, was he right. This was a tiny place, but the menu was huge and the food was excellent.

David ordered the corned beef hash and eggs with hash browns and I had a skillet with hash browns, feta cheese, spinach and eggs. The meal was perfect.

 

Across the street was Giles Cheese Factory and store. Perfectly placed. We had been in Wisconsin for several days and had yet to see a cheese store.

                                  Wisconsin Cheese Shop Near Me | Gile Cheese Factory Cuba City WI 

Well, they had more than cheese, but they had plenty of cheese in every type, amount and some of their cheddar was aged for 24 years. YIKES, That was pricey. But we were in Wisconsin, so we had to buy some cheese and of course cheese curds. We even bought 2 Cow Pies which were like big turtle candies.

The night before, our hotspot battery died and we had to have our hot spot to monitor our kitties and the MH temperature while we were out of the MH. We found a Verizon store in Dubuque, IA which was about 12 miles away, across the state line (and the Mississippi River) so went went there after breakfast.

We decided that since our old hotspot was probably 10 to 15 yrs old we would get a new one and buy a new battery for the old one as a back up. We only use it when traveling or our internet at home goes out which is often, so having another would be better piece of mind, 10 more GB and only $10 a month extra.

We were also having trouble with the kitties water fountain again. We had bought spares, but that wasn't working out. Finnegan really liked he old one and drank a lot from it. He wasn't drinking from the spare one, just standing there looking at it. We tried a Petsmart in Dubuque , but they had nothing at all. Fortunately, David was able to fix the old one. It seems all 4 kitties preferred the old one.

We really enjoyed this campground, but are anxious to get to our next one west of Des Moines, IA., another state we have never stayed. in.