Head Out On The Highway, Looking For Adventure

It was time to savor another Jerry's pizza.  When it comes to Jerry's a straight line, like a damn crow, is usually how I navigate.  But Mr. and Mrs. like to draw it out, making me practically numb with anticipation and epicurean spasms.  

So finding sites on the back roads of southeast Iowa was the price of admission.  And I'm glad it was.  This route was so much fun I marked it down as a great cycle trip for anyone who'd like to tag along.  

The Bentonsport bridge in Van Buren county spans the Des Moines River.  Up until 1985 it was still used for vehicular traffic, but time doing what time does, it soon became a victim to it.  Now it is a pedestrian bridge at it is pretty neat to check out.  

This is looking south from the span.  

Northward view with a more modern bridge can be seen not too far away.

One of the interesting things is that they seem to have reinforced the walking area but left the side girders and roadway intact.  Thus we have fender bender stuff here and there and a look down you see the weathered wood that is decades old.

One can surmise that these bends and dents in the guardrails were lives saved.  Wouldn't that be scary as hell, a bit over served and swerving off the roadway.  Whew.

We seem to want to leave our mark wherever we are.  You can tell this is an Iowan who carved this message.  The old state motto that lasted a short time was "Iowa, A State of Minds."   Then they were told that was false advertising and they had to come up with something else.  They tried "Iowa, It's Eezy to Spell", "Iowa, Where You Lose Your Will to Live", "Iowa, Gateway to Illinois", but now I think they have settled on "Iowa, Fields of Opportunity."  

This scratcher must have come from Illinois - good sentence structure and everything spelled correctly.

Another shot of the old roadway on both sides of the walkway.  

Weathered remnant of old roadway.  

As we were heading out of town we saw this grand old Victorian .  It's better days appear over but she is still quite beautiful.  I will always have a  fondness for this architecture.  I loved my old one in G-Burg.  You don't own these old girls - you are mere caretaker.

On to Oakland Mills.