Bridges

Four years after our great adventure across Europe, we set off this morning on our trek across the USA.  The plan:  six weeks to drive from one coast to the other and then back again...whew!  Although this first leg was intentionally short in distance we took our time, pausing along the way to see yet another Mail Pouch barn or covered bridge.  By late afternoon we arrived at the New River Gorge Bridge near Fayetteville WV and despite the rainy weather took the scenic walk from the visitors center to a vantage point for a good view of the bridge.  Completed in 1977 with a length of over 3000 feet, the bridge crosses over the New River carrying traffic on US Rte 19  at a height of 876 feet making it the highest vehicular bridge in the United States and the second highest in the world.  

Four years ago we visited the bridge which took bragging rights from this structure as the highest bridge in the world.  The Millau Viaduct in southern France spans the River Tarn providing a continuous high-speed route south from Paris through to Spain.  With construction lasting nearly 30 years, the bridge opened in 2004  measuring over 8,000 ft long with a height of 1,125 ft, making it the world's longest and now also the highest.

Both bridges are spectacular engineering feats;  the brute force, the enormity of the construction, the tons of steel involved now offering convenience to a hurried people.   As traffic speeds across the concrete sweep I think of a simpler time and pause to take my photos.  

 How often, oh, how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!