Narrows Bridge

If you've come to see us, then you know that there is a huge bridge we have to cross to get from Gig Harbor to Tacoma.  It's the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and it runs one mile across.  Despite being an engineering feat and a beautiful backdrop for pictures, the bridge has a pretty interesting history.

Originally built in 1940, the bridge, at the time, was the world's 3rd longest suspension bridge.  But even during construction, the workers noted that the bridge had a tendency to move vertically in high winds.  After opening, it took less than 3 months for the bridge to completely collapse in the Narrows of Puget Sound when some 40 mph winds whipped through the straits!

My dad told me that he studied the Narrows Bridge collapse in engineering classes he took while still in England.  The unfortunate incident became a textbook example of how not to build a suspension bridge.

The bridge took ten years to rebuild (mainly because of WWII) and then in 2007 a second, parralelling bridge was opened.

So why the history lesson on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge?  Well, I observe every time I cross this bridge people walking, riding or jogging along a path on the outer edge of the new bridge and I've had this idea that it would be fun to walk the bridge some day.  Of course I knew that Stevie would never join me (the bridge is 187 feet over the water), but with my mom being here, I thought I might have a willing partner!

So Wednesday we headed out across the bridge with Grammie, Cannon, London, Emmy, and Mick, of course. 

I have to say I didn't enjoy it that much, but not for the reasons you might think.  First, I didn't think about the noise that the traffic would make.  Of course we were walking along side the highway so the noise would be loud, but somehow that didn't cross our minds before hand.  Second, I was nervous that Mick was going to spook at some noise and go plunging off the side of the bridge, like some ill fated parachute attempt except he would only have a rip chord and no parachute...  Finally, what mom wouldn't be nervous about the experience of having her three kids walking on a path with a highway on one side of them and a 187 foot drop on the other?  Especially since Emmy kept refusing to be "tethered" to Grammie.

I don't think London enjoyed it very much.  This is his attempt at smiling.

Is it "Pathway Narrows" or "Narrows Pathway"?

So as my mom said at the end, "Well, that was interesting, but I think I can tick that off my to-do list and not have to repeat it."

Happy Birthday, Stevie!

It was Stevie's birthday today - happy birthday!  He got to choose exactly what he wanted to do and his choice was...NOTHING.  Yes, his choice was to lay on the couch, watch football, take a nap and generally be lazy (he was off work so he could do all that).

We did manage to fix him a nice steak dinner and celebrate with a bourbon, chocolate, pecan pie.

I didn't have the right candles so we had to improvise.  Technically it should have been 10(6-2)+1, but there's only so much you can do with toothpicks and candles.

My mom got him a nice wooden walking stick.

The kids made him a plaque



Cabo san Lucas

Part of the reason my mom is here visiting is so that she can stay with the kids while Stevie and I sneak off to Mexico for a much needed week of relaxation for Steve.  He hasn't had a break since February and since he missed the trip to England, he needed to get away.  Thanks to a friend who let us use her time share, we planned a fun trip to the tip of the Baja Peninsula!

I have to say that I didn't really put too much research into choosing our vacation destination.  It was one of those things where I was sitting at the computer flashing through potential places when I remembered someone recently mentioning Cabo, and since it was available on the time share plan, I went for it!

Landing at the brand new airport in Cabo, I realized I had dropped the ball and forgotten to book transportation to our resort and little did we know that after picking up our lugguage we would be spit into a shark pool full of waiting Mexicans more than willing to arrange that for us...and sell us a time share deal!  We were smart enough to just buy the shutle fare and get to our resort, but not smart enough to not get suckered into a time share presentation by our resort!  We were recruited to have a free breakfast, and a "short presentation", before we even had our pool towel cards in hand.

The view of the marina from our resort

In our resort

In our resort

View from our balcony

The resort

The resort

The resort

Our resort from the beach

The beach, the first night.

(The waves were killer!  Literally.  People die on these beaches every week because of the riptides and the waves so we weren't aloud to go in the water, which was really alright with me because in addition to the riptides and waves, there were also sharks.)

Anyways, fortunately for us, Stevie had a level head on during the time share sales pitch and emphatically told them (after 3 hours) to let us go because he wanted to go fishing!!! If it hadn't been for him, we might have a lovely place in Cabo...

This was the resort they were trying to sell us, not bad...

We spent most of the week relaxing by the pool and beach and having a marguerita at happy hour kindly delivered to our deck chair by an expedient waiter.  I actually read an entire book in a week, which is a record for me.  Usually it takes me months since I have limited reading time at home.



Pina colada seemed like a good idea.

Here are some other random shots from the week...



Going out to dinner

Having a shot of tequilla

With a Day of the Dead sculpture

Day of the Dead artwork

Sunrise on our last morning there

A rare couple shot!

Cabo Fishing

Besides eating in Cabo, Stevie did a lot of fishing.  Never caught a fish (except on the charter), but he enjoyed the pursuit!

Naw, he didn't catch these, but he wished he had!!!

Shopping for treasures

One of our last adventures while in Cabo was shopping for souvenirs.  Now, we'd seen all the junk being hawked everywhere in town, but we wanted something a little different for some special gifts.  So we asked one of the concierges if they could recommend a shop and she sent us out to a place on the other side of town called Artisanos.

It turned out to be a huge warehouse full of pottery, glassware, tinware and all sorts of other things.

These were sink bowls

Pots!

I really wanted that frog planter but couldn't get it home.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this place was the actual building itself.  I'm fairly certain that this unsupported concrete staircase wouldn't meet any building code in the US!