After Griswold we rode to Winterset, which was were John Wayne was born. I didn't even know that when we got there, but we went to a laundromat that turned out to be a block away from his childhood home. So naturally we walked over and checked it out. It's really nothing fancy, he obviously didn't come from a privileged background, but it was cool to see it. Plus the foundation that owns the house had sold bricks to raise funds and there were bricks that had been purchased by Presidents George W. Bush and Reagan as well as the governor of Iowa, Warner Brothers Pictures, and Reba McEntire. Somehow it's not surprising to me that John Wayne is popular with Republicans.
We had a sponsored dinner at a church in Winterset that was sweet because it had this awesome contemporary design. I've never seen a church that looked like it before. I'll definitely post pictures when I get back.
That night it turned out the county fair was taking place about a half mile from where we were staying and there was a rodeo there too. I've never been to a rodeo before so it was pretty sweet. They had bull riding, bareback riding, saddle-back bronco riding, and barrel racing. My favorite was probably the bareback riding. The bull riding wasn't as cool as I expected because only one guy out of about ten or twelve actually finished the ride. Also they had little kids riding bulls, which struck me as really inappropriate. Especially after one of the kids failed to get his hand out of the strap and was dragged all the way across the ring by his arm. They managed to stop the bull right in front of us and the kid was crying his eyes out - justifiably so because he probably dislocated his shoulder. And he couldn't have been older than ten. It just seemed really irresponsible to let kids that young ride a wild animal that's like five times their size.
Anyway now I can say I've been to a rodeo and seen John Wayne's hometown.
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