Oct. 6, 2009

From the Apple Island Resort, South Hero, Vermont.

This was a full day. It actually started last night when Gerri found information on covered bridges in Vermont. A few years ago we did a covered bridge tour in western Indiana so we decide to do it again in Vermont. I mapped out two routes with 6-8 towns. One going south and working back to the north , the other going north and working south back to the RV park. We went for the northern route.

There was some blue sky when we started but we got that behind us quickly. We ended up driving about 170 miles, took about 8 hours we and saw 11 covered bridges. We also saw a lot of beautiful countryside, including some changing leaves. Our trip started north on I-89 to St. Albans and then off on Vermont State Routes. The first bridge we spotted was near the town of East Fairfield. Of all names it was the East Fairfield Bridge built in 1865. Our last bridge was the Grist Mill Bridge near Cambridge Junction, it was built in 1872, this was the longest bridge at 135’, one of the longest Burr Arch bridges in the USA. The oldest bridge in the guide was built in 1864, we didn’t find that one. This tour may sound pretty simple but the tourist guide said to use in conjunction with an “Official” Vermont roadmap. Guess what we didn’t have, so it was more difficult. I tried to write the towns, bridge name and date of construction. A couple of hours after we got home it occurred to me that I had two GPS receivers in the Jeep and could have marked the exact locations.

We saw two kinds of bridge structures, Lattice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_truss_bridge) and Burr Arch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_Truss) . Most of the bridges have been restored under a federal pork project pushed through by Vermont Politian. Consequently the exteriors of most of them don’t look that old. The structure of the bridges themselves is obviously original, the beams in some were fastened together with wooden pegs others had iron or steel bolts.

We did figure out how to tell if a covered bridge was down a side road. If the sign at the turn off read 16,000 pound load limit or under, there’s an old bridge.

All in all it was a good day. Not a lot of sunshine, but some stunning scenery. We saw other leaf peekers and bridge seekers. Maybe tomorrow or Thursday we will do the south loop.

I took over 100 photos, you can soon see some in my Facebook album. Some you might have to wait until you get a Christmas card.