On the Road to Alaska

On the Road to Alaska
Denali from the Air

Monday, May 30, 2011

Week Five ~ Alaska Trip May 15-20, 2011

We left Dave and Karen’s in the rain, seems to be a pattern developing. Dave snapped this picture of us just before we were leaving. The other one is as we were really heading out…….

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Dave wanted to make sure that he got the RV, the truck, HIS BARN, and us. He did well!

We had about a three and a half hour drive west to Winterset Iowa where the Iowa Wild Roses Escapee Club was having their spring rally. Every spring Gene and Sandy Teggatz run a four day computer rally. They did an excellent job. It was four days of learning and fun. We enjoyed meeting some Iowa people as well as some people that were from further away. One couple stopped in on their way home from their winter travels, and we had just met them at Skp Acre in North Carolina! Small world. Some of the members will be going to the Escapade in Gillette WY, so we will see them there. We also met Tom and Debbie McIlwain, Chapter 20 members that I have been corresponding with for several years by email. It was great to finally put a faces with the names.

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        Private tutoring

Sandy ran a tight ship! She was on board for workshops Monday through Thursday from 8:15 AM to 4:45 PM. Whew! That lady has stamina. She covered working with Open Office, Firefox, Tips on Iowa2Vista and Windows 7, Picasa, PDF conversion, and photo resizing. Norm presented information on Linux and Tom did a workshop on E-readers. Then we all shared our latest ‘Geek Toys’. What a fun week for computer nerds.

                                                  Tom, Mickey and Barb Tom on E-readers

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       Tom McIlwain on E Readers

 

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                                          A GPS does what???

What we discovered after we arrived in Winterset is that it is Madison County IA which is where they filmed the movie The Bridges of Madison County. So on Friday we took our map in hand and went exploring to find the four covered bridges that were the closest to us. We also found a Stone School that was built in the late 1800s and a tower that was part of the city park. It was a fun day exploring. We managed to get about and get the pictures taken of the bridges before it rained, again.

Cutler-Donahoe Bridge

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   Holliwell Bridge is the longest one.

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  Cedar Bridge you can drive through. The others are blocked off.

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                                          Hogback Bridge

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Next we found the Stone School that was made out of native limestone. It was closed the day we were there, but Phil got some neat shots of the outside. We were both impressed with the condition of the school for being built in the late 1800s.

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Stone tower that is in the City Park with view from the top:

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view from tower 

Not only is Winterset famous for being the site of a popular movie and book, it is the birthplace of John Wayne. So of course we had to go find his home:

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And his statue:

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Quite a bit for a neat little town in Iowa! We left on Saturday, thankfully we did not get stuck, but Gene and Sandy did. That was our excitement for Saturday morning, watching and helping them get pulled out of the mud. We were then on our way north………

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