Roadguy’s been running around town these past several days, so here are a couple of photos from out and about.

First, on Tuesday, I stopped by the University of Minnesota’s Civil Engineering Building (once I figured out where the doors were — it’s a curiously designed place). Inside was a 1/200th scale model of the old 35W bridge, as created by student Rachel Gaulke from Brooklyn Park:

(I was trying for the same angle as this photo, which I’ve published previously and took in 2006.)

Instead of painting the bridge green, Rachel showed her school spirit and used gold for the tensioning members and maroon for the compression ones. She built the model for the National Transportation Safety Board, which will use it as a visual aid when giving talks about the bridge. (The U’s news release is here, a story from Finance & Commerce is here, a FOX9 story is here.) The model seemed quite sturdy, but its gusset plates were very thin.

Meanwhile, down at the real bridge, things are headed skyward (click for larger view):

This was taken last week, during a Valentine’s Day tour of the site. These piers are on the north side of the river and will hold up the southbound lanes. It was about 14 degrees and windy, so the diesel and propane heaters and the acres of plastic were getting a workout as the concrete cured.

The work will get a bit easier in the coming days as the weather warms up. The predicted above-freezing temperatures also mean that more people will start getting their cars washed again, which means Roadguy has only a few more days to try to take pictures of the saltiest cars he can find. Yesterday on the way to St. Paul, he saw two vehicles that were so encrusted that he couldn’t quite tell what their original color was, and one had mesmerizing salt patterns that resembled an intricate tattoo. (Unfortunately, CrapCam was not handy.) If you see an eye-popping salt lick on wheels, do consider sending in a photo, and we’ll see if we can pick the most saline sedan or SUV in town.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 6:05 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.