A busy day today – but nothing unusual about that …
Don’t know if it was dinner last night, breakfast this morning or the various effects of jet lag however I woke up a bit seedy this morning. But there were sights to be seen of course so a little after 8.30 am we started out for our first stop – the John Wayne Birthplace Museum. You will note as our day progresses that this was to be a day of “pop culture”, Iowa style – well certainly as we have grown up with it.
John Wayne joined us for breakfast ! 
At the museum
As many things don’t open till 10am, the John Wayne Birthplace Museum itself wasn’t open but we walked around the outside, which has it’s own “John Wayne walk of fame”, with many tiles laid out showing the various movies he appeared in. Also as we found throughout the day, little American towns hang their hat on any notoriety and Winterset is no different – he was born here in 1907 but by 1916 had moved to Southern California.
As we left Winterset, we found another of the covered bridges – the Cedar Covered Bridge. This particular bridge was built in 1883 however in 2002 there was an arson attack on the bridge which basically destroyed it. So the current version is a replica, built in 2004. It was in a lovely spot over the river with a beautiful picnic area on the otherside of the road down on the river.
Cedar Covered Bridge 
On the Byway
With Winterset now well and truely covered, we started off for Des Moines, the state capital. And as the state capital building is quite a structure, with its gold domed roof, that was where we were headed. Adrienne had found us a spot to park, but as we arrived there were people everywhere – people lined up boarding a series of buses – we had landed in the middle of Iowa State Fair, one of the largest and best known state fairs in the US. Luckily, we found a 15 minute parking space – enough for us to whip up and see the building and take photos.
Des Moines State Capitol
Back in the car, we then set our sights on Pella, a little town founded in 1847 by 800 Dutch immigrants. But not before getting caught up in the traffic heading to the State Fair grounds. Travel arrangements seemed to be pretty organised, with the shuttle buses leaving from the state capitol area, but as we got closer there were various enterprising locals selling their large front yards as parking lots. We then passed the fair grounds and the traffic was thick with cars vying for the few remaining spots.
Pella Historical Village has certainly taken up the architecture of the Netherlands with various buildings in the Dutch style. The canal through the town lost a bit of authenticity though – the pool cleaner patrolling the bottom and the chlorine blue colour a bit of a giveaway ! Pella was also the childhood home of Wyatt Earp.
The information centre 
The community pool, sorry, town canal
Our next stop, and quirky highlight of the day, was the American Gothic House, in Eldon. On the way we passed through the town of Ottumwa, Iowa – the Home of Walter “Radar” O’Reilly, from the TV series M.A.S.H. It fitted the profile perfectly – I could just imagine his mother and Uncle Ed on any of the many farms in the area !
Corn fields ! Who’d have guessed !
American Gothic is a 1930 painting by artist Grant Wood – I’m sure you will have seen it at some point. The original is now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Apparently they bought it for $300 and today its estimated vaue is between $35m and $50m ! The painting was inspired by Wood’s desire to do a painting of the house along with “the kind of people I fancied should live in that house.” It depicts a farmer standing beside his daughter – often mistakenly interpreted to be his wife.
The figures were actually modeled by Wood’s sister Nan Wood Graham and their dentist Dr. Byron McKeeby. It took some convincing to get them to pose – he told them they wouldn’t be recognisable in the painting – and they are said to have been very upset when in fact they were. American Gothic is one of the most familiar images in 20th-century American art and has been widely parodied in American popular culture. We decided to add ours too 😂
Next we had to “timewarp” as we made our way to the “Future Birthplace of James T Kirk”, in Riverside Iowa.
Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, asserted in his book, “The Making of Star Trek”, that the character of James Tiberius Kirk – captain of the starship Enterprise – was born in the state of Iowa. In March 1985, when the city was looking for a theme for its annual town festival, Steve Miller, a member of the Riverside City Council who had read Roddenberry’s book, suggested to the council that Riverside should proclaim itself to be the future birthplace of Kirk. Miller’s motion passed unanimously. So it came to pass – James Tiberius Kirk – Date of birth: March 22, 2228 – Riverside, Iowa !
There’s a plaque – it must be true ! 
From Riverside it was just a short drive to our stop in Iowa City, at the Drury Inn & Suites. Still not feeling great, I decided to have a snooze which turned out to be a good choice. After a couple of hours I felt a lot better and we went down stairs to have our dinner at the Drury Inn’s nightly “Kick Back” – an easy dinner and a quiet drink.
Certainly a fun day – more tomorrow !
Today’s Tour Trivia – You’ve no doubt heard the phrase “the greatest thing since sliced bread”— well, we have Iowa to thank for those precut loaves. Otto Frederick Rohwedder was apparently fed up with trying to cram hand-sliced pieces of bread into a toaster, so in 1912, he invented a device that would cut bread into consistently-sized slices. Unfortunately, Rohwedder’s fantastic invention was destroyed in a fire before it could be unleashed on the world. It took him some time to refine and rebuild, so sliced bread wasn’t commercially available until 1928.