As viewed from the Casco Bay Bridge

One of the 35mm pictures I took when I “discovered” the Casco Bay Bridge as subject matter.

It’s great for biking, walking and just sitting and watching too!

Saturday morning on the way into the office to do some work, the kind of work you can only do on the weekends, when offices are empty and updates to applications, software and/or systems can be made without disrupting users, or without asking users to outright stop working, I took a detour across the Casco Bay Bridge to South Portland.

The Casco Bay Bridge, or “CBB” as no one but myself in this explanation for what you’re about to see over the course of the next 5 day visual tour call it, is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the Million Dollar Bridge. I discovered this morning, thanks to the Internet, Google and Wikipedia, this isn’t correct. CBB replaced the Million Dollar Bridge, or “MDB.” MDB spanned the Fore River, joining Portland with South Portland. It was a bascule drawbridge. (Yes, that is a nice animation!) CBD, also a bascule drawbridge, replaced MDB in 1997.

Anyway, earlier last week I was driving into Portland across CBB, and I was thinking how ugly it is, and I guess I was imagining what the Fore River and Portland waterfront might look with something more like Budapest’s Chain Bridge, Istanbul’s Galata Bridge across the Golden Horn, or any of the utilitarian iron bridges spanning the Chicago River. But that’s silly; I live in Portland, Maine; I like the city a lot; and CBB is what we’ve got here.

Anyway, I crossed the bridge, and I drove up to where the excellent bike/pedestrian walkway descends from the roadway, and I looked, and I took a bunch of pictures. The first batch I did with my Canon one-shot digital camera. I did 2 rolls of back-and-white 35mm stuff, which when I have developed I’ll share. At least the better pictures I’ll share.

So, get ready for a tiny bit of repetition this week. Monday-Friday are dedicated to CBB. I hope it’s enjoyable. Thanks!