Cazalea takes readers on a visual journey across San Diego's newly opened Mission Bay bridge, offering a unique perspective on urban infrastructure and local wildlife. Amidst his detailed observations and stunning photography, he shares a personal connection to his Seiko 8F56 Quartz Perpetual GMT, highlighting its global travels and the significant effort required to restore it.
A few months ago we walked across the San Diego River / Mission Bay bridge. Today we walked across again, but on a new bridge, just opened for traffic in the past couple of days. Ignoring the different colors of the sky, you can see lots of difference in the pedestrian accomodations. Old bridge has a light every 100 yards, New bridge has a light every 50 feet. Old bridge has galvanized steel railings. New bridge has a curb on the outer edge and sophisticated handrails.
These are better built than the average watch (a guess) with stainless bolts, allen-head hex fasteners, recessed LED lighting in the uprights every 6 feet. There are custom cast markers saying this bridge belongs to San Diego. Hmm - is our city that rich? Then why do we have potholes and homeless?
In the middle of the bridge they incorporated a bulge to allow birdspotting (my guess) or large crowds or fat people to pass each other. The wood panels are in places where the rail line shifts outward -- someone messed up or forgot that custom fabrication of those specific panels would be needed to align with the shift in the bridge's concrete walkway.
Photo angles from the bridge are quite nice.
A rare vantage point for salt water birds.
Ducks don't seem impressed though.
This is a new one for me - a Black-Necked Stilt
I'm wearing one of my top 3 favorite Seikos, an 8F56 Quartz Perpetual GMT titanium on bracelet that I have taken all around the world on my travels. It died about 6 months ago and it took an epic effort for me to bring it back to life - no spare parts available, and eBay "parts watch" priced around $300+. One identical to mine but with a cream dial is for sale at $800 from Japan. Hence my efforts, which finally succeeded.
We are having an extremely low tide right now, which is a boon to all the birds here. They are literally wading in food. The ducks are having to come up between bites for a breath of air.
Actually I am wearing two watches today, and the sun is warm enough to take off my sweater. Too bad we are looking at rain most of the rest of this week, says the weatherman.
Even the shore birds are relaxed about things today. I was 6 feet away for these photos.
A nice day and no, we just can't stop.
Cazalea
