i woke up saturday saying to jg, "i miss yosemite." thirty minutes later, we were on our way to redding. no correlation whatsoever. it's our brand of spontaneity. back in the good old days when we were happy and comfortable, we used to take road trips all the time. from popular national parks to obscure back roads.
ah, the good old days. alas.
anyway, at around 2:15 pm, we arrived in redding, at an oddly situated tourist destination called turtle bay exploration park. it wasn't without effort. the highways up in the woods of california are a bit (in keeping with the proper language of schmeebot, i will substitute the actual words jg used with) confusing. add or minus a few expletives.
the drive was long but pleasant. before we got thrown for a loop in the shasta county highway system, we were thoroughly humored by the sight of town names and bumper stickers. we passed signs with curious names like arbuckle and colusa. and nine out of ten cars we saw supported bush cheney. thank goodness my bumper doesn't say kerry edwards. otherwise i wouldn't be here to show you this story.
cool skyline on i80
crossing the carquinez strait
mobile home vs big rigs on i5
mushroom cloud also on i5
so, what's in redding? i don't know. i didn't even know the town existed until i heard that calatrava was designing a foot bridge for it.
the sundial
jg over the sacramento river
thuy trying to break a cable
cable
thuy's favorite shoes and frosted glass deck
neat detail
west side of cable mast
east side
standing where the mast's shadow marked 2:39 pm
cigarette butt receptor on lawn at base of mast insert your opinion here
these were taken below deck.
plaque on bridge support
a man approached us while we were reading that plaque. he informed us, "do you know who san diago coal trava is? he's that guy that bankrupted greece for the olympics!" i swear, those are his exact words.
the sculpture
jg looking up at mast
hollow mast
looking up at deck
a nice picture of jg
overall, lackluster. i have always had a thing for calatrava so i had high hopes for this bridge. i don't know what happened in redding but that ain't the bridge it should be. i mean, it looks like calatrava did a cheap imitation of one of his own bridges. how could it be? is my hero falling off his organic pedestal?
regardless, i think it's worth a trip. see it if you can; it's pretty darn unique. watch out for high way 299. the redding folks use 44 as a short hand for it.
next entry, i'll show you where we went after we left turtle bay.
those photos are amazing. im jealous at the fact that you can just get up and drive to a new place...i love to visit back roads but i think we've seen them all here on oahu. :( you have a great eye for photography, thuy.
» from pknitty
10.06.2004
There is a Calatrava exhibit in Seattle that I need to check out. Also, he's giving a free lecture as part of the exhibit in November. Thanks for pointing out his work. :-)
» from g
10.06.2004
you take the best pictures.
» from Mariko
10.08.2004
I've heard lots of good things about that bridge! There's really not much else in Redding, you know. I did hear there's a good Italian restaurant, but that's it! You do take glorious photos.
» from foob
10.20.2004
the pictures are beautiful. simple forms of a simple piece. beautiful. excellent forms and clean clean colors and lines. oooh.
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