Old bridges...

I miss the old covered bridges that you used to see along the highways. I can still remember road trips when I was a kid...I always thought the bridges were the best part. Having grown up in St. Louis next to the Mississippi River, maybe I have more of an appreciation for them because we had to use them pretty often. They don't make them like this anymore, but then I'm sure there an logistical engineering-type reason for that. I don't care. I still think they look cooler than most new bridges. I've lived in New Braunfels for four years now, and I never knew this bridge existed...my son showed it to me one day. It's on a street that I've never been on because it's in a little neighborhood that I've never needed a reason to drive through. It's not used as a driving bridge anymore, but you can walk across it. It's all shiny and painted, so it doesn't really look that old...other than the ornate style which you don't see anymore.

It's over the Guadalupe River and this is what you see to the east...

And to the west...

Here's a railroad bridge in Selma, Texas. I think there's a tiny little creek that runs under this, but there was a "No Trespassing" sign on the road by it, and I've been told you don't want to disobey those signs in Texas.

I climbed up the hill to the tracks...and found an old railroad spike on the side as a souvenir for my efforts.

I like graffiti if it's done well. There are a LOT of trains that run through San Antonio and south Texas. I've never lived anywhere where I've had to stop for trains so much. So when I have to stop for one, I pass the time by watching for the graffiti on the cars. I think there's a real art to it and some of them are pretty imaginative. This one's okay.

I caught this one about a year ago in Kyle, Texas, which I like.

So now I'm getting off the track of bridges. When I drove to St. Louis a couple years ago, I came back via Route 66 which was a lot of fun. I started out in St. Louis at the Chain of Rocks Bridge. This was on the old Route 66 which crossed the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis. We went over that bridge many, many times when I was a kid because my dad did a lot of work in Illinois. The bridge was unusual, because it had a turn in the middle, which made it kind of dangerous. You can't drive across it anymore, but they made it a walking bridge for Route 66 nostalgia. My son and I walked out on it and we couldn't believe how narrow it was...hard to believe that trucks could get by each other. When I was a kid, we lived a couple miles away from this bridge. There was an old gas station where this picture was taken that was run by a guy who owned chickens. Childhood memories.

This was added for nostalgic purposes.

This is the Eads Bridge in downtown St. Louis which goes over to East St. Louis, Illinois...a city which should be on the bottom of your "Places I Want to Go Visit" list. The Gateway Arch is just behind me.

This is a bridge in St. Robert, Missouri, going towards the Ozarks.

Here's another railroad bridge in Hunter, Texas, which looks pretty much the same as the one in Selma. Selma's a pretty big suburban area north of San Antonio, but Hunter is one of those "blink and you'll miss it" kind of places. But I think those little towns are kind of neat, so I couldn't pass up some photo ops there.

This place is right next to the railroad tracks...your typical little small-town bar.

"Nowhere else but Riley's place." I'm thinking there might be a FEW other places than Riley's, but I'm not going to tell them that.

This is across the street from Riley's. Now, this place is obviously uninhabited now and is pretty much a "fixer-upper." But if you look close, you'll see there's a pretty new satellite dish on the right side of the porch overhang. Yeah, you might have to do a few things to fix this place up, but at least you have a nice satellite dish to start out with!

...which made me think of this place on Isla. Another "fixer-upper"...but this one is occupied!

But San Francisco has a few bridges which are okay.