October, 2021
There is so much water around the town of Mossyrock. No wonder it’s mossy here and the town is named after the moss, eh?
But also, that’s why I love it here so much … I love being around water. There are lakes here, big and small, and rivers and creeks and bogs and ponds. I guess that’s why the otters love it here too. 🙂
Of course, the two dams (Mayfield and Mossyrock) create lakes (Mayfield and Riffe) on the Cowlitz River, but as I was driving around seeing other things, I realized there are lots of other small rivers and creeks that feed into the Cowlitz River. The water in those small rivers and creeks backs up too because of the dams. And all that water means there are lots of bridges. Bridges are important.
Even without bridges, just driving the back roads here is a delight.
But bridges connect one side to the other, and that’s important. And they allow us to see and experience all manner of things we wouldn’t see and experience otherwise.
Today, I was driving yet another back road and approached yet another bridge; it seemed so pretty. I pulled over and parked the big white truck just off the road at one end of the bridge and then I walked out onto the bridge, along the pedestrian walkway.
I had no idea until I got partway out onto the bridge that the remains of the original one-lane bridge was still there, just off to the side, down at water level. When they built the new wider, two-lane bridge (with a sidewalk on both sides), they left a portion of each end of the original single-lane bridge.
Photo below … close-up of the concrete support for one corner of the end of that section above. You can see that the top of that round concrete used to have on top of it another rectangular support for the next part of the original roadway (that section now gone, of course).
Below … the old section at the other/far end of the new bridge.
Here’s a closer photo (below) of the section at the other end. Notice the RED arrow … it’s pointing at some wobbly old boards that lead from solid ground, out across the water, then out onto this remaining section of the old roadway.
I walked across the new bridge until I was above that section with the wobbly boards and I took a photo looking straight down at those tilted, wobbly, tipply boards …
Yikes! I sure hope no one walks on them. It would be so easy to step off one of the boards, or for the boards to slide sideways, or just cave in … and then dump you in the water or, worse, break your leg or ankle. But someone must have put them there as a way to get from solid ground and then out onto that section of the original roadway. I wonder why.
Ah, my timing was perfect! Almost. I walked further along the new bridge, almost off the far end of the new big bridge, and then realized a young fellow had parked around the corner and was walking out towards those wobbly boards! I tried to get back fast enough to get a photo of him crossing the boards, but I didn’t make it. But I did get a photo of him standing out on that section of the old roadway/bridge … casting his first cast for some tasty lake fish. I wish him a good catch, and sure footing across those boards on the way back.
I’d been so focused on those two sections of the original roadway/bridge that I hadn’t looked along the other side of the new bridge that I was walking along.
I crossed over to the other side (hmmm, that sounds ominous). The water and trees on the other side of the newer bridge were absolutely gorgeous. And so peaceful. I just stood and stared. For a long time.
And then I moved to the left so I could see further up the waterway there in the distance. Click on, or otherwise enlarge, the photos below and take your time with them.
Can the world get any more beautiful?