Vermont Covered Bridges - Part 3

One thing I found that was pretty interesting is that there were a number of homes I saw in Vermont and New Hampshire that had their own private covered bridge that crossed small creeks at the bottom of the homeowner's property.  Some of them were very cool looking and were built in the same style as the 1800s styled bridges around the state.  Here are two private bridges I ran across.   The first actually had a padlocked gate on the backside to keep people from driving across it. 

I know I've shown a number of photos already, but most of the photos I've shared so far were bridges that were a little unique in one way or another.  I think I've mentioned how most of the covered bridges in the state all have the same kind of look, and this bridge is a perfect example of what the majority of them look like.  I would say that 80% of the ones I saw and drove across looked just like this and all were about the same length even.

There was one bridge though that was much longer than the rest.  It was so long that it was hard to find an angle to get a good photo of it until I climbed down to the river's edge and down the bank a little.  The problem here was that the sun was blasting directly into the camera lens though so I shot it two different ways.  One with most of the sun blocked by the tree branch, where I knew I could create a sun star that might be kind of cool in the photo.  Then for the other, I just used the bridge itself to block the sun.

And then for my last covered bridge photo, I saved what was my favorite bridge on this trip and also the newest one I saw.  This one was built in 2012 and you could tell right away that it was very new, but I loved how they stuck to the same style of all the other bridges across the state.  I think this bridge was my favorite for a couple of reasons.  One is that the colors of the wood and roof really played well off of each other, and the surrounding colors of the bushes and hillside.  As soon as I shot this photo, I knew it was going to be my favorite of all the bridges.

And B... was that it had a set of train tracks running in front of it that made for a composition that made this my favorite shot of all the covered bridges.  I tried this shot in both color and black and white and the black and white version was my favorite of the two by far.

One last note about this bridge.  I loved how they not only stuck to the look of all the other bridges, but they also built it the same throughout.  I really thought I was going to see that the outside was just a shell on a concrete and metal structure inside.

Okay, that's the last of my covered bridge posts (for now anyway).  I think I shared all the best shots I got on this trip and probably won't post anything else about covered bridges until I can return to Oregon and re-shoot the 52 bridges I know of down there, under better weather conditions than I had on the last photo trip there.

Vermont Covered Bridges - Part 2

Most of the covered bridges I saw in Vermont seemed to be older bridges and from what information I could find on most of them, most were built before 1915, with the majority built in the mid to late 1800s.  That makes it very impressive to me, that not only are they still standing but most are still in use every day.  It was pretty interesting to drive across them and think about how they must have been built back in the horse and buggy days and to think about how much has changed since then.

Here are a couple of bridges that are starting to look their age, but still in use.

Not all of the bridges were still in use though and just taking a look at them you could see why.  I think I found 3 or 4 that were no longer in use which is still very impressive when you realize Vermont has over 100 covered bridges in the state.

This bridge might have been the oldest one I drove across on my trip and it was still in great shape.  According to the plaque on this bridge, it was originally built in 1836.  I wish there was more information about each bridge posted near them but I don't think they are really treated as landmarks and just used as normal every day bridges.

This was another of the few bridges I saw that had a plaque on it showing when it was first built.  1842 in this case, if you can't read the sign.

This next bridge was different from most of the others I saw because the sides were open to the weather and you could actually see out as you drove across it.  I was surprised to see that most of the covered bridges were totally walled in or that they would only have one or two small windows.  I'm trying to remember how many I saw that were open on the side like this one and can only remember seeing 3 maybe 4 that were open.

I left all of these photos in black and white as I really think it conveys the age and time these were built. Well, that and the fact that the trees were bare and it was pretty bleak when I took them.   

When I first drove up on this bridge it first appeared to be much newer than any I had seen so far, but then as I got closer and read the sign,  it totally cracked me up and made me realize it's been around a very long time too.  I wonder what that $2 would translate to in today's dollar.

And just because I really liked this shot in color, I'm going to add one bonus photo of this same bridge looking back towards the small waterfall that you can see on the right-hand side of the first photo of it.

Vermont Covered Bridges - Part 1

Okay, so I had to change up the title for the next batch of posts, mainly because I was starting to feel like I was as bad as some of those people that come up with titles for Hollywood movies and I was quickly approaching double-digits for my "part..." titles.  I mean really, who wants to see Taken 12?  I was tempted to come up with some kind of bad pun for this next one, but who would really ever come to read a post called "Spans and the Spurious"?  And then, of course, there would be all that pressure to keep one-upping myself and let's face it, wordplay is not my strong suit.

So, I'll just stick to babbling on about whatever pops into my head when I'm trying to write something about these trips.  I know in an earlier post I made a comment about the covered bridges in Vermont being a little disappointing, but looking back on my trip, that's not entirely true.  Just looking through my photos, I think I've counted more than 20 separate bridges that I actually stopped at and took time to walk around to photograph.  And I know I looked at a number of others on my trip that just didn't have a safe spot to attempt to shoot.

Instead of just posting 20+ photos of these bridges here I'll try to remember what the area was like around them and what if anything special I can remember about each one.

This first bridge is Scott Bridge, which is the longest wooden span in Vermont.  I won't write too much on the history of this bridge as you can just read about it here:

I can remember thinking how impressive this thing looked when I first came around the corner and saw it there, crossing the river.  I was disappointed to see that you could no longer drive across the bridge (one of the few I visited on the trip that couldn't be driven on any longer) but saw that you could still walk it so I found a spot and pulled over to check it out.

What I didn't realize at first was that this bridge was actually made up of what was once two separate spans that had been joined together.  I didn't stop to read the sign when I first walked through it and about midway through, you can see and feel a definite seam where they were joined as it wasn't exactly flat and smooth.  At least now I could see why they didn't let people drive across it any longer.  If you look closely at this photo you can see the change in the angle towards the far end of this shot.

It was really interesting to see all those huge beams and bolt that hold this thing together and really, for it looking mostly plain from the outside, it was still pretty to look at from the different angles. These are all just quick photos of the bridge, straight out of the camera with no editing at all.