Bridging the Gaps

A scene from our morning adventure

ATTENTION SPANS: CJ was up at 5:15 today. Hooray. :/

Actually, as much as I'd like to sleep in, I do like getting our day started early. And that's just what we did.

We were reading a library book, "Superstructures - Fabulous Bridges" before 8 a.m. It began with a brief history of bridges - some dating back to B.C. The book detailed common building materials (concrete, stone, iron and steel), and it outlined the four basic bridge types - the beam, the arch, the suspension and the cantilever.

Then, noteworthy bridges were profiled, including the Brooklyn Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, Sky Harbor in Australia, and Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain Causeway (it's 23 miles long!!). We also learned about the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan, the world's longest and highest suspension bridge. And who could forget France's Millau Viaduct? Its towers top out at 1125-feet - taller than the Eiffel Tower!

EPIC FAILURE: Especially for Puget Sound area dwellers, no talk of bridges would be complete without mentioning the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge. It opened in July of 1940 and collapsed in dramatic fashion just four months later.

We watched a couple of videos about the disaster, including one that seemed to be produced shortly after the event. The film clearly shows one car was still on the bridge when it went down. It was amazing to watch its driver miraculously make his way off the bridge. From another source, we knew there was a dog in the car. Turns out it was a cocker spaniel named Tubby. A UW professor walked the wildly bouncing bridge to try to rescue the dog, but Tubby was too terrified to get out of the car. She went down with the bridge. Annabelle and CJ were distraught at this development. I quickly pointed out to them that Tubby's body was never found and so maybe, just maybe she dog paddled her way to safety, right? RIGHT?!? Why of course, that's what happened. :)

BRIDGE WALK: There's lots of water 'round here, which means there are also lots of bridges, too. It's not uncommon for us to cross four bridges in a day. We're almost always in a car while crossing then. I thought today we'd change that.

We parked along Nickerson Street in the north end of Queen Anne and headed for the Fremont Bridge.We walked on the west side of the bridge.

That meant we passed the bridgetender's quarters.

Once across the bridge, we had to check in on the commuters who never seem to catch their bus. We also had to pay homage to J.P. Patches. By continuing eastward just another couple of blocks, we found ourselves under the Aurora Bridge. There, there is a neat sculpture that doubles as a pretty photo frame. We walked east a mile or so and arrived at Gasworks Park. There, we had a good view of the Aurora Bridge, which was now behind us.

We enjoyed the scenery for awhile. We continued eastward. I wanted to walk all the way to I-5 but CJ started protesting rather frequently. He was clearly still feeling puny from a cold that materialized on Monday. So, we turned back toward Fremont. We paid the Troll a visit on the way back.

All in all, our jaunt took two hours. We were back home before noon and went on with the rest of our day - reading, pulling weeds, tending the garden, and other garden variety stuff. Oh, and Bee had a special ballet class - Dancing Dolls. She adored it, of course.