Other Bridges,
Other Counties
Want to check out historic covered bridges in other states? Here's a
partial guide to some of the country’s finest:
Parke County, Indiana lays claim to being
the Covered Bridge Capital of
the World. The mistly rrural area has few accommodations,
so book lodging at local B&Bs or other places early. Festivals and fall
foliage season makes it even more important to book early.
To check out some of the real-life covered bridges in Madison County, Iowa,
visit the official -- that is, virtual -- Web site of the Covered Bridges
of Madison County
Closer to home, check your own state - you may be surprised to find covered
bridges where you least expect them. Examples: Ohio and Virginia.
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RelationTrips
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Personal, Practical Advice for Every Traveler
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Burning Your Bridges
During a tour of wooden bridges in Iowa,
a woman happens upon the real-life Bridge of Madison County and wonders:
Does true romance last?
By Dina M.
Horwedel
Photos by Ramon Mena Owens
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"I pondered over the graffiti,
the messages, and the story of love lost.
I wondered: did Theresa ever fall in love? Was she happy?
Are Jim and Joan still together? And if so,
is there true romance in their lives?"
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Long before the bridges of Madison County, Iowa, near the town of Winterset,
spawned a novel and movie, its wooden covered bridges served as unconsecrated
shrines to love, loss and community.
The bridges themselves are made from large, rough-cut timbers, and the
19 original structures were covered to protect the expensive flooring timbers
from the elements.
Built in the late 1800’s (the two oldest of the remaining bridges, the
Cutler-Donahoe Covered Bridge and the Imes Covered Bridge, were both built
in 1870) the bridges served as meeting spots, places to post sale notices,
invitations, birth announcements, and the like in the small rural community
south and west of Des Moines.
Initials, declarations of love, and lonely chords of loss are carved and
written on the inside walls of the covered bridges that arc across the North
and Middle Rivers and creeks in Iowa.
On the Holliwell Covered Bridge, just outside of Winterset, time seemed
almost suspended as the midwestern symphony of cicadas, blue jays, and crickets
testified to the illusion of an endless summer. The runnel of brown
waters of the Middle River eked their way, barely a trickle, through its
muddy banks, overgrown with cattails, Queen Anne’s lace, and sinuous vines
of poison ivy.
As I kept an ear open to the sounds of late summer, I bore witness...
to longing . . .
I hope I fall in love some day.
Theresa
to loss . . .
Jessica, Rain and Justin
I love and miss you.
Mom
and to lasting love . . .
True romance lasts forever
Jim and Joan
But does true romance last forever?
Just the day before my arrival, I read in the Des Moines Register
that someone had set fire to the Cedar Covered Bridge. The bridge was
the only one in Madison County that still ferried traffic across its footprint
to a nearby park where people married, were engaged, and held family reunions.
The intense heat of the fire caused the bridge to collapse in on itself,
its ashy, skeletal remains a specter.
Who burned the bridge?
Two days after the incident, officials weren’t talking, although they
steadily gathered clues as a procession of cars, trucks, and farm vehicles
crawled by, locals and tourists alike, to pay their last respects.
“Like a funeral,” one farmer told the press.
Perhaps the arsonist was a lover scorned.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
In 1985, a local man burned the McBride Covered Bridge (near the site
of Francesca’s house in the movie) to the ground after his lover refused
to leave her husband (not unlike Francesca).
He had been drinking at the local Bridge Festival, and then paid one last
visit to the bridge to see their initials he had carved. Then he spilled
a can of gasoline across the bridge’s floor and lit a match. He said
he was disconsolate and merely wanted to remove the initials (had he never
heard of sand paper?). He served a prison sentence for second-degree
arson.
I pondered over the graffiti, the messages, and the story of love lost
at the site of the Cedar Covered Bridge. I couldn’t help but wonder;
did Theresa ever fall in love?
Was she happy, or did she have regrets? Was
Mom ever reunited with Jessica, Rain and Justin? Are Jim and Joan still
together, and if so, is there true romance in their lives?
We seem to have a problem understanding that life and love ebb and flow,
not unlike the river below those bridges.
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