URBAN BRIDGES GS

This morning started at the bench when I had to replace a battery and lengthen a bracelet. This is another watch I have reclaimed from my wife for a few wearings. 

Notice the dial is cracked between 11 and 12. I wonder how that happened?



We decided to walk in the city and pick up a few of the bridges mentioned the other day by San Francisco reader Patrick_y. At the moment it's not possible for us to be out for 5 miles, but here's a LINK TO 7 BRIDGES WALK.

The Spruce Street Suspension Bridge (built 1912) is appropriately called by kids as “The Wiggly Bridge.” 
It’s 375 feet long and hangs seventy feet above Kate Sessions Canyon, anchored by steel suspension cables (redone 2010 to modern standards).

A suspension bridge which still flexes alarmingly when you cross it, evoking thoughts of Raiders of the Lost Ark? The Man Who Would Be King?


A long way to fall but at least it's not rocks or a raging river...



This wire end clamp is amazingly large.


We are in an area called Bankers Hill - from an Era when Banks were Respected, as were Bankers. Sadly, that's not so much the case now.



Phillips Screwdriver cactus?



Apparently these vines haven't got the memo about winter coming. Even though it was very chilly this morning they were looking very tropical



Hibiscus



The blossoms are very dramatic



Back down in the canyon BELOW Banker's Hill things are looking a bit grim. A horticultural downturn? Decades of neglect or disputes over responsibility have led to a total mess.



It's like being in an elephant (or blue whale) graveyard.



This is how tall the fallen tree was when it toppled.



The waning moon is still hovering over us; bright in the Western sky.



Not everything is grim -- this wooden house (about 100 years old) still stands in Maple Canyon as it did 50 years ago when I trekked here as a youth. 
Imagine this as your front yard, 1 mile from downtown San Diego in 2020!





Our friends Ellen and Jim live in this house. We've never seen it from below before.


The First Avenue bridge. If we want to get back to the truck and home (before we freeze or perish from hunger) we need to get up there.



Huff, puff, groan.



We emerge at the home of San Diego's branch of the Self-Realization Fellowship. I wrote a book about this guy in 1975.  



The Indian sub-continent does Christmas in San Diego.



I was so tired when I got back up to the truck I couldn't do a farewall shot of the watch at the canyon. Now that I am home and revived, here it is in our canyon. No date!


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