Igor I. Sikorsky Memorial Bridge, Stratford-Milford, CT

Igor I. Sikorsky Memorial Bridge

I thought I'd be running out of bridge pictures too fast, so I slowed to posting just once a week. That's kinda backfired, and now I have many bridges on the pile to discuss. Part of my reluctance with some of them is that they are... just bridges. You have the exciting ones, and then you have the more or less standard ones, like this one, the Igor I. Sikorsky Memorial Bridge, which takes the Wilbur Cross Parkway over the Housatonic River between Stratford and Milford.

Route 15 here continues west toward New York and becomes the famous Merritt Parkway, of which I've written. On the Stratford side of the bridge is the Sikorsky Aircraft Company. They make helicopters.

You may have heard of them. The helicopter they have mounted in front of the factory is the first thing I noticed about the place :)

The bridge itself is a standard beam bridge. There is a nice pedestrian/bicycle walkway on the north side of the bridge leading up from a loop park which also extends beneath the bridge. It's a very pleasant stroll, and even though it was pretty chilly the day I went, there were a lot of people enjoying it.

Estuary

You can tell from the barrenness that this was taken a couple months ago. They call this field an estuary, but it looks mowed, which kinda doesn't have the same connotations of unspoiled wetlands that the word conjures up for me. Elkhorn Slough back in Moss Landing -- now there was an estuary.

If anyone asks, I would totally move back to the Monterey area if I could swing it. And I'd take my daughter and her family back with me, cuz I'm totally selfish like that.

Anyway, the Sikorsky Bridge is one of the last bridges on the Housatonic I had yet to photograph. There's the possibility that I will do another state-spanning photography day with the Housatonic, because I'm pretty sure all the bridges along it are easily accessible. Unlike the Connecticut River as it flows through Massachusetts; that river twists and turns and little thought is given to tourists. I tried to get the French King Bridge on my way up to Cow Hampshire last weekend, and had to give up. The only way I could see to get a picture without trespassing in someone's yard on a hill a half mile away (and I was tempted) was to get on a boat.

Anyway I'll probably write that bridge up just to get it off my camera.

Washington Bridge, Stratford-Milford, CT

Washington Bridge

I was thinking this weekend I wouldn't go bridge hunting, but come Thursday I was already sketching out plans to start photographing some of the many bridges in Fairfield County. Fairfield County is pretty much New York City's sixth borough, and as such is the perfect run-up to my Manhattan trip sometime this spring.

I started the morning heading down Route 15 to Bridgeport. Route 15 had a lot of amazing bridges crossing it, but I had no place to stop so they went unphotographed. Next time, I'll set up something so I can set my phone on the dash and it can automatically snap pictures and get these bridges uploaded.

Bridgeport was supposed to be a gimme; its name is Bridgeport! And there were bridges, and I'll eventually post them here, but they weren't something to get really excited about. I took my pictures and headed to Stratford to see the end of the Housatonic River as it empties into Long Island Sound. I was rewarded with an absolutely incredible bridge, the Washington Bridge, a six span open spandrel arch bridge with a two leaf bascule -- drawbridge -- in the middle.

I've been up in the north part of the state, where the Housatonic flows fast and free beneath the West Cornwall Covered Bridge and to a lot of the bridges that cross it along the way. Dammed three times, it is slow and wide here.

The bridge is easy to get to; take exit 44 off Route 95 and head straight along Ferry Boulevard to the shopping center at the end. There's a private marina there, and a small park with a public wharf that goes aways into the river. You can cross beneath the bridge and find wooden paths down to some public piers which give a great view of the bridge (such as the one that heads this post). The bridge has sidewalks crossing it on both sides; the south side gives grand views of the river delta, the north side looks down on the marina and over to the Route 95 river crossing and railroad bridge. The railroad bridge might be a swing bridge, but I think it might be a lift bridge. It was hard to tell from where I was, but the giant towers over it suggest to me that it is a lift bridge.

I-95 river crossing

Cornwall Bridge, Cornwall Bridge, CT

That's not a typo. Cornwall Bridge is actually within the town of Cornwall Bridge. It carries Route 7 over the Housatonic, and is just a few miles south of West Cornwall Covered Bridge, the bridge from yesterday's post.

The Cornwall Bridge is a six span, open spandrel concrete arch bridge. It really sounds like I know what I'm talking about when I write that. It's a huge bridge, but crossing it by car, there is no clue as to its size or beauty. You have to stop the car and look over the side -- or drive down the steep hill past the tourist shop and the church and just be bedazzled.

I learned a few important things from this trip. First is, _charge your camera battery_. I don't know why I didn't. I thought of it the night before and that very morning, but just assumed I'd have enough charge. I didn't. The camera was gasping along on fumes here. It'd shut off. I'd wait a few seconds and turn it on and get another shot or two. It would shut off again. I managed to make it through this bridge, but it totally gave up the ghost on the next stop in New Milford at the Lover's Leap Bridge. I had to rely on my phone's camera for most of those shots. And then it ran out of power, too.

So, lesson learned. If you're going to drive a couple of hours to get someplace beautiful, and you have a full slate of bridges to photograph as well as a hike, make sure you are _prepared_. I didn't prepare then.

Maybe lesson not learned. I rode my bike five miles in the wrong direction this morning because I didn't check my map carefully enough. Late for work, too.

If you plan to visit the Cornwall Bridge in Cornwall Bridge, you can park at the foot of the bridge itself, as the creepy pickup truck with its lights on was doing in the second picture. What was up with that. Or, you can park up top at the trailhead to the Mohawk Trail. Which I did.

The Mohawk Trail climbs Breadloaf Mountain and joins at the summit to the Appalachian Trail. It's entirely possible to take the trail from here, all the way south to Bulls Bridge and then leave Connecticut at that point for New York, keep hiking, and come eventually to the Bear Mountain Suspension Bridge over the Hudson. I would love to do that someday -- just hike the Appalachian Trail for a few days.

This far south, the Berkshires aren't really a mountain range; more a series of tall hills, yet the hike is fairly strenuous. It's well marked, but don't expect the paths to be to the well-trod level of the ones up at Shenipsit State Park. The trail is steep and rocky and you will be grabbing at trees to help get up and back down again.

Summit of Breadloaf Mountain

But when you do get to the top -- heaven. The panorama above was taken with my phone; the sunlight reflected off the scrape on my Canon's lens in such a way as to ruin every shot. It's hard to get a good shot of the Housatonic River valley far below. The summit is cleared out with plenty of bare rock on which to build a fire; many, many hikers likely have done just that.

West Cornwall Covered Bridge, West Cornwall-Sharon, CT

The third and last covered bridge in Connecticut, the West Cornwall Covered Bridge, crossing the Housatonic about 20 miles north of Bulls Bridge, a covered bridge in Kent. If you're already headed to the Berkshires to see one of them, you might as well see the other. And as long as you're coming to see _those_, you might as well stop by the Cornwall Bridge, a huge arch bridge in the town named Cornwall Bridge. That's a different post, though.

Of the three covered bridges in Connecticut, this is the largest, though still not wide enough to let two cars pass inside. Wikipedia says the bridge was originally built in 1864. Covered bridges weren't terribly rare back then; if you're going to be building a wooden lattice bridge anyway, not much reason not to wall it in and put a peaked roof on it to protect the deck from the weather. According to the Connecticut Historic Bridge site, the state department of transportation concealed steel beams in the flooring (same as they did with the Comstock covered bridge) to keep it safe for traffic. During last year's tropical storm, the Housatonic became violent and deadly -- but the bridge weathered it without damage.

For all the businesses in West Cornwall with "Covered Bridge" in their names, you'd think there'd be better parking for tourists -- the other two covered bridges have loads. If you want to get out of the car and walk around, you'll have to park in some business' parking spot, or along the cul de sac that runs for a short way along the river.

Once you are parked, there's plenty of places from which to take great pictures. Just watch the traffic; this bridge does see heavy use.

The Appalachian Trail does not run through this bridge, but it's not far away. I'll talk more about that in my next post, when I write about Cornwall Bridge.

Not to be confused with West Cornwall Covered Bridge.

This was the last major bridge shoot I did with my point-and-shoot Canon G12. There's a small scrape on the lens that ruins every picture taken with it; I had to be really careful to keep the scrape outside of any picture detail. If you look for it, you can see it in both these shots. I really need to get that fixed. I understand there are kits that can maybe do it. It's a really handy camera with very powerful built-in software.

Since then, I've been using an older, but yet-unscratched, Canon EOS Rebel T1 camera. It's a digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera that does hardly anything for you. That's also its strength. Since it doesn't know all the rules about taking pictures like the G12 does, I can break them if I need to. Plus it can shrink the aperture down to a pinhole, allowing some pretty cool effects in the right hands (not mine).

Derby-Shelton Bridge, Derby, CT

Derby-Shelton Bridge behind railroad bridge

Just a few miles south of the Stevenson Dam Bridge, the Derby-Shelton Bridge connects the cities of Shelton and Derby ("Connecticut's Smallest City", brags the Welcome to Derby sign). The Housatonic here is wide and slow and soon meet its end in Stratford, emptying into Long Island Sound. A dam just north of Derby creates Lake Housatonic.

Derby-Shelton Bridge panorama

The bridge is a four span arch bridge made of concrete. The stronger concrete allows the arches to be thinner, compared to the somewhat sturdier construction required for stone arch bridges, like the Bulkeley in Hartford.

Derby is full of rewards for the dedicated bridge hunter. Apart from the Derby-Shelton Bridge itself, there's the three span steel truss railroad bridge, and turning 180 degrees from the above photographs, the deck truss Commodore Isaac Hull Bridge dramatically crosses the Housatonic as well.

Commodore Isaac Hull Bridge

The Naugatuck River flows into the Housatonic just south of here. The entire area is a haven for river recreation.

I'm really impatient for spring so I can see these places full of life....

Stevenson Dam Bridge, Monroe-Oxford, CT

Stevenson Dam Bridge

I was a little worried this bridge wouldn't be around when I got there. Comstock Bridge was disassembled first time I got there, Ashland Mill Bridge was demolished. When I was researching the Stevenson Dam Bridge, I was reading that it was being replaced in 2009. The Lake Zoar residents (the lake formed by the dam drowned the hamlet of Zoar) and the people downstream on the Housatonic aren't wild about the bridge being closed or replaced. One issue: the Housatonic all up and down its length was previously used for industrial runoff from its source in Pittsfield, MA. Any new bridge construction could stir up contaminated silt in Lake Zoar.

The Stevenson Dam Bridge carries Route 34 between Monroe and Oxford. It's a 24 span arch bridge and I think it might be the only dam in Connecticut that carries a road over it. There aren't many bridges nearby that carry traffic over the Housatonic; the next one to the south is in Derby, the one to the north in Newtown. It's the Stevenson or nothing for fifteen miles in either direction.

The HDR source images

This shot was an HDR experiment. I've recently started following several professional photographers on Google+ and learned a lot about using apertures to, for instance, remove all the traffic on the bridge. High apertures, long exposures and a tripod. The lesson was that I did everything I could do, and the end picture looks pretty much like the bridge looked to me in real life, but I couldn't make it look better that it was.

Sometimes they open the dam up -- that would have been a great picture. A sunny day would have been better (and it was supposed to be sunny today).

There's two great places to park if you wish to visit the bridge. Coming south on 34 to Monroe, continue straight where the road turns onto the bridge down a steep, one lane road to the power station. There is a parking area there for a trail leading down to the river.

On the Oxford side of the dam, there is a small spot to park and take pictures along the span of the bridge, like the one to the right.

There are tourist spots all along both sides of Lake Zoar where, in nicer weather, you can canoe or fish, as long as you don't eat what you catch.

Bulls Bridge, Kent, CT

Bulls Bridge is the second of Connecticut's three remaining covered bridges. It bridges the Housatonic River (HOOS-a-ton-ic) in Kent, near the New York border. The Appalachian Trail crosses this bridge on its way out of New England; the trail also comes near the last covered bridge in the northwestern part of the state.

The bridges that cross the Hudson are enormous. The ones that cross the Connecticut, utilitarian. The bridges that cross the Housatonic are as different as the river they cross. The Housatonic is a deadly river, and people lose their lives in it every year. Many right here, at the Bulls Bridge.

The bridge is just south of a dam (the Bulls Bridge Dam...) and the water that crosses the dam flows into extremely dangerous rapids that last for several miles before settling down to a fast but gentler flow. Tourist towns (like Kent) dot the northern stretches of the river, especially where it flows through the Berkshires.

It wasn't easy to get a picture of the full length of the bridge. The banks of the river are rocky and steep and the river is going by so fast, I didn't want to get all that close. This picture was taken from a trail that formed a short loop from the parking area up to some rocks and back. The river curves a lot. The best pictures would be taken from a boat.

There were "no trespassing" signs all over the hydroelectric power plant at the dam. I'm sure there's a spot to take a better picture of the bridge, but I don't know when I'll get back. Kent isn't close to ANYTHING, which I guess is one of its attractions.

There's a small parking lot just over the bridge. From there you can follow the Appalachian Trail into New York, head down the river to a small picnic area that continues in a steep path to the water; or follow a path upriver to a canoe launching area. It's on the upper side of the dam so you won't be able to get under the bridge from there, but you might get a better picture of the bridge from the water.

The Bulls Bridge Inn is just on the east side of the bridge, and during the season, the entire area is open to boaters, fishers, hikers or just people who want to enjoy the beauty of the Berkshires.

I went in November. Not the best time.