The Bridge

The new bridge was open. There must have been a penalty clause because they've still working on the approaches, but they are letting traffic through. The Jeep started fine, and the tire pressures were all good. The Buckeye Diary Bar was still open, it closes for a few months in winter, so I stopped for a milk-shake and a footer. No one playing putt-putt on the Buckeye Course and the fountain is turned off, but it's lovely, the mist rising off the river. It's raining again. An off-beat rhythm. No luck on the modem front. Back-up items, mostly, shopping yesterday. I spent some time re-organizing the pantry shelves and making a list of things I had over-looked: and extra tube of toothpaste, a battery for the headlamp, another pair of work gloves. A foodstuff list too, which can be forever tweaked. I need another back-up black pepper, because I'm soon to break into the back-up; more of the anchovies rolled around capers, another wheel of cheese that could last a few months. I need some jerky and dried fruit, but I'm good to go. Beans, rice, a few things I know to gather. I cultivate a few herbs, grow some sprouts, drink cranberry juice against scurvy. I don't know what the impetuous is to live on the edge, a certain satisfaction, maybe, my smoked mullet is better than your smoked mullet, but I do love waking to an actual day. The new bridge is not bad, given the parameters, it can carry the load of a logging truck and still appear polite. They've saved most of the slightly dressed stone from the old abutments, and several edge pieces intact (which must have been moved by the crane that set the girders) and I suspect they are to become a stone wall somewhere that money is not an object. The bridge cost 2.1 million dollars, and I argue that I could have built it for half of that, or even less, with two phones and a decent crew.