That special Sunday in November is drawing near

In a couple of weeks I will (hopefully, weather permitting) be walking across the Chesapeake Bay on a Sunday morning. Upon checking my email a little while ago I saw that my registration materials for this event have been mailed to me. That Sunday in November is drawing ever closer, day by day. I’ve been waiting ever since the middle of this summer, not too long after I got back from my trip to Cedar Point and to visit the New River Gorge Bridge. Waiting can be hard sometimes, for some things especially. But anticipation provides something to look forward to, a future goal to seek out and finally complete.

This will be a very different experience from my visit to West Virginia’s great arched metal monster earlier this summer. Before that time I had never walked across anything larger than a small pedestrian bridge in my life. Of course, I’ve been across the Bay Bridge many times in a vehicle, so there is that bit of familiarity. But the chance to walk across a true monster of a bridge, has thus far, and will hopefully continue to be, a most awesome experience. I told my mom I was planning on walking the Bay Bridge, and she had no issue with it. She just reiterated that she “doesn’t do bridges” but that if I wanted to do the walk, more power to me. She did warn me that it moves and sways. That remains to be seen, as there will only be foot traffic on the bridge that morning. Speaking of movement on bridges, I recently read an account by someone who had also done the New River Gorge Bridge walk. They made specific mention of the bouncing and shaking I experienced while on that catwalk. Few if any of the accounts I had read before doing that walk said anything about that surprising sensation.

I am already looking to next year to try and figure out where I want to go for roller coaster trips and what bridges might be nearby. Charleston’s river spanning monster, the Ravenal Bridge, is one that can be walked across at anytime, as it has a path for pedestrian and bike access. A trip to Carowinds amusement park would put me within range of that one. Apparently there are also a few other bridges that are normally for vehicle traffic only but offer a day each year where people can walk (or run) across. One is the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan. This is an area where I doubt I’ll ever be visiting, though I can’t say I never will. Therefore that one is rather low down on my list. Another one that offers such an annual day for pedestrian crossing is the ultimate in bridge notoriety and nightmares. Yes, that would be Florida’s infernal freeway of the damned, the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. That would be the penultimate experience of existential skin crawling dread to take a stroll across that blood splattered monster’s deck! I’d have to wonder if I could handle driving over it, much less walking across it! I think I’d need to have a vial of holy water in my pocket and be wearing a cross necklace in order to walk it. And I’m not even Catholic… Raised Protestant, but still, I’d feel like I’d need some form of protection to spend anymore than a couple of minutes treading on the concrete spine of that beast. Driving on it is one thing, but walking – and standing – on it, would be a whole other escalation of fear. And I’d really have to psych myself up to do something like that. I can see one of these days I might make plans for that, but it will be a while. At least the Bay Bridge isn’t evil. To some it might be scary, sketchy, decrepit, ancient, obsolete, and dangerous, but its steel wasn’t seemingly forged in the fires of Hell like that of theTampa Bay’s abomination. If there was ever a bridge where a worker got buried alive in a concrete pour it would be that one. Of course, that’s just an urban legend, but still…if it HAD happened anywhere, that would be the bridge!