really tall surprises

On the camping trip this weekend, my mother in law kept talking about this “surprise” she had for everyone. after our hike we drove up the winding country highway from the campground to visit fort knox. At first I thought the “surprise” was that we all got there. We had to travel caravan style taking all 3 cars. This would be fine except papa murph was leading the way with his heavy foot. Fortunately it was a pretty straight shot and no one got lost. 40 mins later the signs for the state park started to pop up. As the road winds around you take a pretty sharp corner and on the other side are met with the sight of a massive newly constructed bridge (and the remnants of the old bridge).

The “surprise” was that we got to go up to the observatory on the top of the bridge tower. Some in our group were a bit wary of this surprise but I was psyched. The husband was a tad nervous but was glad it was enclosed in glass. He still has flashbacks to our trip to the Eiffel tower where I kept hanging the camera out the side of the fence in order to photograph the structure. I didn’t get to do that here.
One of the most fascinating things about this was that the new bridge was built right along side the old bridge for something like $1.2 Million, however it is going to cost many millions ($5M, $10M I can’t recall) to take the old bridge down. This is due to the lead paint covering the old bridge and the environmental hazard it poses when dismantling it. It will have to be taken down piece by piece. This was wild to me.