I think the title of this post is a movie title taken way too far. But it's me, so there's that. Given the fact that everyone knows about my interests in public transit, amusement parks, aircraft, railroads, automobiles, freeways and cars in general, it should surprise no one that I've also held a longtime interest in bridges. Any kind—steel, concrete, wood, freeway, boulevard, railroad, Lego, cantilever, suspension. Crossing rivers, highways, railroads, gulches, canyons. The list goes on. It's strange that I haven't written anything about this till now. I guess I simply never thought to do so. Some days my brain works; other days it just sits drinking pituitary juice cocktails—in the gland scheme of things, anyway. It must not taste very good, given that it's called pih-TOOIE-tary juice. But I don't think any of us wants to know any more about that, let alone discuss it...
During my life, I've been blessed with the pleasure of visiting all but 43 of the states of our great country. It's not much of a feat compared to the fact that Diana has visited more countries than I have states. And she's been to probably about half of the states. My point here is that I've never gotten out much in my 61 years. Throughout the country and the world, there are bridges that are absolute marvels of engineering. While I can sit under my skylight here at home looking at them online, it's not the same as visiting them in person. Though, I suppose that's true for anything, really.
Instead of whining about what I haven't seen, I can proudly say that I have had the opportunity to see some of the best that my home state has to offer. Two of the most famous bridges in the world are just up the state from me in the San Francisco Bay area—the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (aka the Bay Bridge). I'm happy to say that I've crossed both a few times. Both of them opened in the 1930s and have served Bay area drivers well for many years. The Bay Bridge underwent some major construction a few years ago to replace the eastern steel truss span with a newer cable-stayed span. Part of the upper deck of the old bridge fell onto the lower deck in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The entire structure was found to be prone to collapse in a future quake, so construction of the new span got underway. I've yet to cross the bay on the new bridge, but I'll get there. I'm always up for an adventure.
I won't be able to get back north anytime soon, but we happen to have some new bridge construction recently finished in my neck of the woods. The old, steel arch Gerald Desmond Bridge, which connects the city of Long Beach to Terminal Island was recently replaced by a new span, this time a cable-stayed span that is higher and wider than the '60s-era relic that it replaced. By the way, Gerald Desmond was a politician in the city of Long Beach. If you'd like to read more about him, click here.
Photos of the old version of the Gerald Desmond Bridge can be found here along with photos and artist's conception drawings of the new replacement span.
Just to the west of the new bridge is another favorite, the Vincent Thomas Bridge, a classic suspension bridge built in the early '60s. At one time, there was a toll to cross this bridge, but it was dropped sometime back. As for who Vincent Thomas was, click here.
I mentioned earlier that I'm always up for an adventure, so I took myself on one just today. My goal was to get my car washed, thus enabling me to see out the windshield, and then head to San Pedro and Long Beach to see the new bridge and cross it a couple of times. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos, but the sites linked above have better photos than I could ever take. A stop at Henry's Tacos for dinner and a visit with Omar was a nice way to top off this adventure.
