Quad-City Times from Davenport, Iowa • 79

(A IE (ft 0 "2 '35 a) See North Korea: 3T Ann Landers: 6T Erma Bombeck: 6T Miss Manners: 8T Congratulations: 9T Horoscope: 11T JJ 4 11... The mascara revolution isn't over yet 7T Plus 60 art show ends today 12T Czars' treasure In Topeka 2T i1, if iEIEeJa 1 Section TRAVEL STYLE QUAD-CITY TIMES Sunday, June 25, 1995 91 FASHION In praise of cheap shoes Time was when you could fake everything but the shoes. Outlets brought you visibly better-made designer clothes for next to nothing. But the shoes well, you didn't have to read the All Man Made Materials stamp to know that what you were looking at was an unnatural thing, because it had that vinyl sheen to it and the styling was from 10 years back or just from Hell. Brown shoes especially were a hazard, matte, mud brown where your craving dictated the oil-rubbed gentility of an old saddle.

And that slap-slap of a synthetic sole on linoleum everyone would know. Save money on the clothes, the rule was, 4 1 because you'd be needing it for those Joan Davids. But that was then. Now, shoes have gone over the top, over the flats that broadcast their bloodlines. Now, with a clomp, fat heels and lug soles have ushered in footwear democracy; style, at least for now, has displaced smug, genuine sub 1 Scott stance.

Why pay for Italy when Brazil and Spain are just as scenic? Payless and Shoe Town and Parade of Shoes lands of opportunity all. "I'll trash them tonight," says one Payless shopper, "but who cares?" At Parade: 'Twenty bucks. I think I'll buy them just to buy them." My sister, sensing some favorite cheap rides were breaking down, gleefully bought another pair of the same. And when the fashion or the moment or the madness passes, you can shelve those cheap shoes without guilt. The slightly tarty, "new" strap-py spikes in particular ooze low-rent promise: When you discover you hate them, or love them but can't actually walk in them, you can throw them away.

The Washington Post ADVENTURES OUiltu Larry FisherQUAD-ciTY times rTficy aten't couetecf, but atea faesfe oei ziomantics plenty fitstoiy, beauty By Bill Wundram QUAD-CITY TIMES 'J 1 "frfa w' "Ail Hf5S A postcardlike scene greets drivers at a bridge near Bluff Road in Scott County. ABOVE LEFT: Quietly, Lost Creek winds through the bluffs under a bridge east of Princeton, Iowa. ABOVE RIGHT: The author along Mud Creek, near Wapsip-inicon River. Autumn in Alaska HERE isn't much idyllic to say about the I bridges of Scott County. There is no place for Francesca to leave an engaging note to Robert, suggesting that he might come to supper that night.

But, as in "The Bridges of Madison County," the heartland scenery of Scott County is gloriously beautiful if our bridges are not. There are exactly 106 bridges in Scott County, none of them covered bridges as in the real Madison County, in the book and in the movie. "That sounds like a lot of bridges, but it really isn't," says Larry Mattusch of the Scott County engineering department. "Some counties, like Pottawattamie, will have 600 or 700 bridges." Out in the country, the gold-enrods were politely not accepting sneezes, the day-lilies were about to burst into sunset orange, and the pampas grass was yet to make its bow. The day (it took a full day, believe me) was perfect to churn clouds of country road dust, exploring the bridges of Scott County.

There was a song of summer, of singing crickets and the unusually early cries of cicadas. Scott County is good at replacing its old iron truss beamed bridges with sterile skillet-flat concrete. The new bridges have bland, fender-high metal barricades on each side to keep cars from plopping into the water. Still, some of the new bridges, such as the broad, concrete interstate-type county bridge over hinterlands Lost Creek, are quite attractive against a backdrop of knee-high virgin corn and full-blooded red barns. There are still a few real old-time iron truss bridges, with rust fighting through steel beams.

There are no totally wood bridges left, the kind where you drove over and heard clunk-clunk-clunk noises. Above Princeton, Iowa, along 285th Avenue, 1 found the only plank-bottomed county bridge left. I had to scrape away gravel to find the planks, and ducked after being dive-bombed by red-winged blackbirds nesting in the willows. A sign warned, "Single Lane Bridge" and a deputy sheriff said this once was called Swamp Charley Bridge, for an old geezer who lived in a nearby shanty. See the fall colors of Alaska during an eight-day journey departing Aug.

29, which is timed to coincide with the region's brief fall season. Daily naturalist-escorted excursions go into the heart of Denali National Park to see subarctic vegetation that thrives where temperatures range from 80 degrees to minus 50. Participants will see grizzlies, caribou and moose, and hear the call of migrating sandhill cranes. The tour is co-sponsored by Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and California Arboretum Foundation. Cost: $2,466 per person, double occupancy, including accommodations, porterage, sightseeing and land transportation, and most meals.

Not included: air fare to Alaska. Contact: Learned Journeys, P.O. Box 30626, Santa Barbara, CA 93130; tel. (800) 682-6191. Newsday as they are doing these days on "The Bridges of Madison County." I rambled around the county like a prospector, with a map of Scott County as wide as the car's front seat.

County engineers had marked with an (as on a treasure map) those bridges they thought I would find most scenically interesting. In no way can I guide you to 106 bridges. Of course, I didn't nearly find them all, but discovered the most picturesque settings to be in the curling hills around Princeton. Try Bluff Road at Princeton and cross the bridge at 260th Avenue. Awesome scenery that would make Madison County envious.

To the east of Z-30, a lovely bridge crossing at 252nd Avenue stirred me to stop and admire. A suspicious farmer stopped, BRIDGES Please turn to Page 5T The bridges don't have names anymore, except in the overcast memories of past-generation farmers. In Scott County, there used to be a Red Ball Bridge, Cobtown Bridge, the Chicken Farm Bridge and Pig Stand Road Bridge. A favorite was Coca-Cola Bridge, crossing Territorial Road above LeClaire. A long time ago, a Coca-Cola truck flipped on the bridge.

All its full bottles plunged into the creek water. Most were unbroken. For years, kids jumped off the bridge and into the water to retrieve bottles of Coca-Cola, cool, intact and drinkable on a hot summer day. Most of those old named roads (like Buttermilk Road and Slopertown Road) and their pet bridge nicknames, have become citified with numbered streets and avenues. Convenient, but unromantic, and 1 doubt if anyone was ever married on a Scott County bridge,.