On the way home yesterday while it was still nice and gloomy (director’s light!) I crossed the Burnside Bridge. There’s a wikipedia picture of it, since there’s no good angle to get of it while crossing. It’s potentially a nice looking bridge, what with the Italian Renaissance towers along the side, but it’s always under construction.

And it’s often known as the Bumside Bridge (hey, I didn’t come up with that, leave me alone) because the downtown side has the Rescue Mission and the Salvation Army across from each other, resulting in constant lines of the disenfranchised sleeping on the sidewalks and parts of the bridge. And a lot of the crowd are some harsh lookin’ bastards frankly, and lots of people who aren’t big goons like me feel uncomfortable walking alone across Burnside. On the east end there’s a skate park under the bridge that is self-policed by boarders, and on the west side underneath is the Saturday Market, which also happens on Sundays and you can buy art made out of silverware and such like.

Just before taking crossing I rolled up by the decidedly non-scary regular bridge crossers, newlyweds Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover. They hoof it across Burnside most every day. Now I really need to go document the Steel Bridge and settle once and for all where one finds the east side entrance for biking and walking. Today I actually used the child seat on my bike for what it’s for (instead of holding my computer bag) and took Allie to pre-school with it on my way to work. But now I have to cart around her Barbie daisy helmet.