Carquinez Bridge

Although this bridge is not the workhorse that is the San Francisco Bay bridge, or the elegant gateway framed by the Golden Gate bridge, neither is it as impossibly ugly as the Richmond/SanRafael bridge, or as boring as the San Mateo and Dunbarton bridges. I love its strong, masculine lines and no nonsense design. Ane we can still use our Fast Trak device to pay the toll without stopping....

The graceful cables of the newer suspension span right next to it can be glimpsed to the left of the shot. Will was a toddler when it was under construction, and he loved road construction videos, so we took him to see it. He fell asleep in the car on the way, and we had to wake him up, something he doesn't do easily. Hs stared at it blearily and showed little interest, so we put him back in his carseat and carried on. He fell asleep again instantly, and had no memory of the stop after we reached our destination. We still call it "Willy's Bridge".

I don't really understand the design logic behind having two bridges of completely different types of construction so close to each other, but nobody asked me....

We delivered the North Bay presents to Tim and family, and stayed to see their numerous Christmas trees--one for the kids, one for the living room and a little one in Maya's room. It's quite a nice drive through the vineyards, and the wetlands at the head of San Francisco Bay, notable for the fact that the wetlands are marked this year by dry, cracked, saline crusted ex-waterays. There are still lots of birds. I hope they are finding enough water to sustain themselves.

The low, slanting rays of the sun cast a nice light as we traveled home, but OilMan was eager to get home, and not disposed to look for or linger over blip opportunities. He is now planting our bare root roses which are already budding....