[thechat] the bridge!

[Luther, Ron]

Erika sent some scenic bridge links:


Hi Erika!

Oh yeah?  Well I'll see yer scenic bridges ... Oooooo, nice!  ;-)

>>http://www.icarusbungee.com/bridges.html
>>a lot of them are in my homeland, Humboldt Co, CA

Neat!  Although <shudder /> I think I'll pass on the bungee jumping.

>>...back to Minneapolis, my fav bridge there is the Stone Arch Bridge...
>>http://www.visi.com/~jweeks/bridges/rrpics/stonearch14.jpg

Oh, that one looks very nice and relaxing!


And offer a few more: 
http://www.pbase.com/gshamilton/covered_bridges

Covered bridges are nice for either lazy summer hikes, or for driving across; if you drive across sideways, on snow and ice, in the middle of the night, at excessive speeds, on road rallyes.  Wheeeeee!

I'm a bit acrophobic ... so naturally I gravitate to the taller bridges for walkies:

IIRC (it's been altogether too long) the Marienbrücke bridge has this wonderful see-thru metal weave floor that makes it marvelously intimidating for folks like me to walk across: http://www.loughrigg.org/bavaria/bridge.jpg

Walking across the bridge in Royal Gorge, Colorado wasn't quite as bad ... but the bridge moves noticeably when a car passes.  A fact my alert wife determined before our walk but decided to withhold from me.  Deliberately!  Nice.


RonL.

(Who needs to bungee into his photo stock and find some of his own nice bridge pictures to share.)

Random Tangent 1:
[I saw a documentary recently (actually it was an infomercial - but it was on PBS so I guess that makes it a documentary) on 'land cruises'.  Back in the 1930's or so, wealthy folks would buy and pimp out their own private railroad cars ... much like a rock star with a tour bus.  Anyway, a lot of these still exist and operate today and you can vacation on some of them.  Take a scenic rail 'cruise' through beautiful scenery and interesting bridges. One such: http://www.northernsky.com/index.html Or ride with an owner, (has some pricing): http://www.aaprco.com/Travel_Opportunities/Postings.html#fourth07 ]

Random Tangent 2:
Not quite a bridge thing, but years ago I stumbled across some tourist information about a train/cablecar thingie that routed over the ocean between a few of the smaller islands in Japan.  The really cool bit?  Most of the cars had huge bathtubs so you could soak in the bath, on the train, taking in the view of the islands and ocean through these humongous windows.  It looked really nifty.