Saturday, April 11, 2015

The Installation of the Bothell Bike Trail Bridge

I was flooded with relief as I finished delivering
the mail from Bothell to Kenmore and back
along highway 522. The entire distance from
Bothell QFC shopping center down to Kenmore Safeway
and back was fairly hair-raising, trying to get in
and out of traffic without being nailed by a semi.
The scariest spot to deliver was to the
Balls of Bothell, on Dead Man's Curve.
It's really known as Wayne Curve.
Unless you are pulling out into traffic
in a tiny mail jeep and wondering if
you'll live to see pie at Petosa's
at Bothell Landing or not.
I'd finished delivering Valhalla and crept
back on the highway going east towards Midas Mufflers
when I saw the bridge. While it meant a fifteen minute
delay for pie, I mean mail delivery,
it was exciting to watch the gigantic semi do a
Y turn to back across the four lanes of the highway.
On the back of the longest flatbed I'd ever seen were
two several hundred foot long slabs of concrete bridge.
My mouth dropped open as the driver backed the slabs
backwards across the highway and down the narrow drop
and steep hill into place across the Sammamish river.
That was in 1980 and now I ride my bike up from
Kenmore to Bothell and across that bridge every day.

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