Building Bridges

This week is quite a big one in the history of Charleston with the opening of a new bridge joining Charleston with Mount Pleasant over the Cooper river to the West of here. The Ravenel bridge has taken four years to build at the cost of $632 million dollars and is North America's longest cable-stayed bridge - three miles long and with eight traffic lanes. To mark the official opening this week, the powers-that-be have decided to throw open the bridge to pedestrians, for a few hours today and tomorrow, so they can enjoy the sight before the traffic get their hands (or wheels) on it. So, at about 8am this morning, i dragged myself out of bed - feeling a bit hungover from last night - and, with a couple of workmates, made my way to the Charleston end of the bridge (the city had thoughtfully provided buses to shuttle everyone too and fro). And off we went. Along with what looked like the whole city population.

It's an undeniably impressive bridge (For some pictures, see http://www.wltx.com/news/news19.aspx?storyid=28774) and the views across the Cooper river are absolutely fantastic - you can see why a lot of people turned out for what is pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (once the cars are there, that's it). And let's face it, a considerable percentage of the American population could do with a good brisk walk to shake off some of the burgers (there were a good number of, shall we say, large people about). Having got two-thirds of the way across, we decided to head back and catch a shuttle down - partly to avoid the crowds (the bridge was swarming) and partly to save our legs in the increasing humidity. All in all, it was a very enjoyable experience - something i'm glad i did. On the bus back, one of the locals (very simple folk) kept chanting about it being history in the making. Very much so. Now if only America could start building bridges with the rest of the world, we might actually begin to get somewhere.