The view from inside the bubble

I had no idea why I wouldn't be OK.

When one of the adoptions employees at the Humane Society came down from the front desk to the room where I volunteer with dog training classes every Wednesday for the past year and a half and told me that my fiancee had called and wanted to make sure I was OK, it made no sense at the time.

Watching TV now, safe at home, it probably wasn't a fun hour for her.

The bridge that came down runs up the east side of downtown Minneapolis, spanning the river that is crossed several times up and downstream, no more than a half mile from the Metrodome and carrying a highway that I'm on every morning on the way to work.

While anyone who is really interested can check the maps, the long and short of it is that Highway 35 is split south of the Twin Cities into 35E, which cuts through St. Paul to the east and 35W which jogs along Minneapolis in the west. The two then meet up again about 20 miles north as it continues up to the north shore.

This particular stretch of road is just west of the University of Minnesota and University Avenue, which runs along the north side of the campus jumps over the highway a few hundred yards north of where the bridge went down.

Strangely enough - and this is by no means an indictment of the road's condition - I've steered clear of the bridge lately because road work has made that stretch prone to traffic jams. The radio reports I heard tonight on the way home said that work was purely cosmetic and I have no reason to think otherwise, but I wonder tonight how many cars would have been traveling there if summer road construction season hadn't forced people to find other routes home.

Some other things to know about the bridges here in the Twin Cities:

* There are two roads - East and West River roads - that follow the banks of the Mississippi River and weave under the series of bridges up and down the banks.

* The bridges themselves are a pretty good height. Most are in the 50 foot range or so. When you're listening to firsthand reports of cars falling to the river, realize that it's a hell of a drop.

* There are plenty of bridges here in town - to get home, I have my choice of four to cross - so that's a pretty nasty double-edged sword. There's no really good way to get around town without crossing a bridge at least once.

It will be a strange commute tomorrow morning.

(Image from StarTribune.com)