Bay Bridge

“Such a feat of engineering.” That's me to my husband, commenting on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, both because that's a true statement and because I needed to say something to distract myself from the panic that rose as the bridge span peaked several hundred feet high over the cold water of the Chesapeake Bay. It's a very long bridge; very long and very high. 

And beautiful too. It's an astonishingly beautiful day, sunny and nearly 70 degrees less than a week after we saw high temperatures in the 20s. Maryland weather, man. I'll see your crazy ass in hell. 

As the warm air hit the cold water it created a shroud of mist that almost completely hid a tanker steaming through the bay, and only the tops of the steel girder towers were visible from Sandy Point as we approached the bridge. It's one of the loveliest places in Maryland. 

We're on our way to Salisbury for Marymount’s last regular season meet of the season. Saints vs. Seagulls at 3, and I don't like our chances. Salisbury is hot right now, but we don't care.  Win or lose, we're in those stands. 

*****

It's Saturday now, 10:30 AM, and we're driving through Delaware, a Google Maps detour that adds at least an hour to the drive. Roadwork, apparently. We won't cross the Bay Bridge today. 

Marymount lost to Salisbury, by a pretty wide margin, but it was still a good, fast, exciting meet with lots of great swims, including a pool record for one of our girls. The boys medley relay also finished with a time fast enough to beat the previous pool record in the event but the Salisbury A relay finished first with an even faster time. Most of the races were close, and although it can't be denied that Salisbury went in with a considerable advantage because they practice in a meter pool every day, it also can't be denied that they are just a really good team. That was the last regular season meet, and the boys finished 7-2 overall, and 7-0 in conference meets. On to the championship, 3 weeks from now. 

It's a foggy and gray drive across the Delmarva peninsula. The sun made an early appearance and for a few minutes it looked as though it would burn the fog away and leave us with a clear day but the sun is gone now and we're driving through the fog, with just a few feet of road visible before us. It's rather nice. Atmospheric. 

*****

The sun did come out, just a few minutes after I wrote this. And then we turned on a news radio station and learned that Google Maps detoured us not because of roadwork but because of a horrendous accident on the Bay Bridge, a 43-car pile up that sent dozens of people to the hospital and shut down the westbound span of the bridge for most of the day. If we'd left 30 minutes earlier, we'd have been on the bridge just as the accident happened. Thank God no one was killed, but I bet there are a bunch of people who are never going to cross that bridge again. It took almost four hours to get home via the Delaware detour around the Chesapeake Bay. 

It's Sunday now and I just left a watch party for the Ravens-Chiefs game. It seems that a lot of men have a lot of feelings about Taylor Swift “distracting” Travis Kelce, a highly paid professional who should be able to do his job no matter who is watching in the stands. Meanwhile, the stupid Chiefs are going to the stupid Super Bowl again, so I guess they learned to play through the distraction. Both the Chiefs and the NFL should be writing thank you notes to Taylor Swift, who made football interesting to many people who’d never have watched otherwise. Football needs Taylor a lot more than Taylor needs football. 

I don’t need football at all. I do need Division 3 college swimming, but I’ll have to live without it for a few weeks - no competition for the next few weekends, until the conference championship, a 3-day D3 swim-palooza. I’m looking forward to it, but it will be nice to have a few free Saturdays in the interim. We’ll also travel overnight for this one but we’ll stay on the western side of the bay. One foggy bridge crossing was enough for a while.