Union Station Bridge, Hartford, CT

Union Station & Bridge

It was an absolutely beautiful morning. Temperature was rising fast; 36F when I decided today was going to be a biking day, 42F by the time I left the house.

I've had breathing problems all my life. My parents and their friends were professional smokers and had to keep practicing every chance they got. I didn't take a clean, uncongested breath until I moved away from home and got away from smokers (and then I married one...).

The cold snap this month kept me off the road most days, and today I was huffing and puffing my way to work. It's almost full time biking season again and my lungs will get strong again, but it's going to take work, and every year it takes a little more work than the year before.

Nevertheless, I had to stop and take a picture of Union Station (on the left) on the way to work; such a beautiful old stone building. And since this blog is technically about bridges, there's the Amtrak bridge coming into the station.

I've passed under that bridge a thousand times, but I've only been on it once. A year ago last Christmas, I was coming back from celebrating Christmas with 2/3rds of my sisters in Somerville after a Christmas-day blizzard had shut down Boston's South Station. A day later, I managed to get a seat in one of the first trains out as they cleared the tracks.

This winter couldn't have been more different.