Sunday, September 09, 2012

Linkage and Similar

Our British Blog-Bud the Brighton Pensioner has been publishing pictures of picturesque ponts these last few days... and I REALLY had to work at that alliteration... all of which are most beautiful in differing ways.  You should go look... and scroll down, coz he's only posting one pic per day.

I've run a few bridge pictures here at EIP in the past but none quite as beautiful as Brian's examples.  Here are a few pics of a bridge that was declared "beautiful" by fiat.


Click all the pics to embiggen and click again, if need be.



I need to tell ya sumthin', though... it wasn't a beautiful experience standing in the middle of that bridge and looking down several hundred feet into the Rio Grande canyon while big-ass trucks lumbered by and the bridge moved up and down several inches in the vertical.  Especially when one has a highly developed case o' acrophobia.

11 comments:

  1. I have a hard time even looking at those pics, let alone being the one taking them. Ugh. Brave man.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ummm... my girlfriend at the time literally dragged me out on to the bridge to take these photos. I normally wouldn't have dared venture out on the bridge, otherwise.

      Delete
  2. I would compliment the BP more often, because he does take brilliant photos, but I don't want him to get a swelled head.
    Somewhere amongst the myriad photos on my hard drive I have a picture of him, The Old Bat (I think that's probably the first time I have referred to her by that name because she really truly is a nice lady), and GS with the Golden Gate in the background. I'll look for it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've often wondered about the "Old Bat" appellation, Skip. But I have endearing terms for some of my ex'es that COULD be construed to be much worse. As for the compliments... well, perhaps I'm too very free with mine, but credit where credit is due, no?

      Delete
  3. Toby's office was on the east side of the bridge about a half mile away. The real thrill is floating the Rio Grande in the rafts pictured. If you have never done that, do it. Way cool! The Taos airport is also near the bridge. A friend took us up in his Cessna and then flew north up the river, made a right turn north of Questa and flew over our house and on up to fly us over the frozen mountain lakes. That little airplane ride took place on Jesse's 11th birthday in June. Thanks for the memories.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're most welcome, Lou. I'm afraid I'm beyond the river-rafting stage of life, though.

      Delete
  4. I knew an Civil Engineer who designed bridges for the Colo Dept of hwys back in 67--he took real pride in the bridges he designed.

    And I know what you mean about acrophobia, Buck. I have a variant in which one has an overpowering urge to jump. My Father had it too. It didn't affect me in the AF insofar as one has to have a visual physical direct connection between one and the ground. In HS the Univ of Illinois had HS Day where the football teams from all over the state would be bussed in and get in free for a game each year against an out-of-state opponent unlikely to fill the stadium. (or for nominal group rate--memory fades) I remember the year Ill played UCLA (they were STILL using the Single-Wing w. Billy Kilmer as QB) and they put us up at the top rim of the top deck. At that time U of I had the most steeply angled, highest double-deck stadium in the US. I was sitting on the VERY LAST bleacher row next to the rim. If I stood up the lip came only about to a couple of inches above my waist. As I gazed over the rim down at the ground the feeling was almost overpowering. Don't think I could take the new high decks they added onto Tiger stadium at LSU..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My Mom had that variation of acrophobia, Virgil. She "fell" out of our kitchen balcony when we were stationed in Turkey and got a free three-month trip to the USAF hospital in Wiesbaden to fix her broken back as a result. The driveway she landed on was dirt... mud, actually, due to recent rain... so that prolly saved her life.

      As fer me... I've left my fingerprints in aluminum and steel radar antennae all over the Free World.

      Delete
  5. Thank you, Buck - you are too kind. Mine are just lucky snaps, not great photos.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have a great eye, Brian, and that makes your luck.

      Delete
  6. I think bridges are lovely things, in the abstract, but not so much in reality. I hate driving over bridges. The smaller ones don't bug me too much, but I'll go five or ten miles out of my way to avoid going over a particularly high one such as the one shown here.

    ReplyDelete

Just be polite... that's all I ask.