covered bridge

Millbrook Covered Bridge is one of the 14 historic bridges in New York I’ve had the chance to photograph.

I think I’ve finally caught up on most of my covered bridge photos.

I’m a covered bridge nut. Shooting these structures is like Americana. It’s somewhat like a lost era. When these bridges were magnificent and really appreciated. As time goes on, some of these bridges get into disarray, wash away or moved and allowed to fall apart. In time, many of these structures will be gone, so documenting them is something for the future as well.

However, sometimes I take a bunch of photos and then squirrel them away and post. Alas, I wanted to get them up and into sets and collections on Flickr.

I know I have some others to work on, mainly from a trip a few years ago where I got to see a couple in southern Pennsylvania and Maryland. Those are almost ready. I just need to get them labeled and uploaded.

I’m supposed to be heading to the Philadelphia area this weekend for a pair of disc golf tournaments. On Friday, my goal is to play an early practice round to see the course and then I want to cache in the area. Three caches are tours of covered bridges in Bucks County. Three caches cover many miles and 12 covered bridges. Of course I’ll add other caches along the route, but I’m super pumped that I’ll be able to shoot all those new covered bridges. At least that’s my hope. Plans can change, of course.

In my lifetime, I’d like to see as many covered bridges that I can, so if I can squeeze a dozen this weekend, I’d be pumped. Disc golf, caches and covered bridges. With the weather supposed to be cool and sunny, it sounds like a perfect weekend.

One of my favorite shots of Fitch’s Covered Bridge.

Some of my recent Flickr uploads include four historic New York structures — Millbrook, Forge, Tappan and Jay, all of which I found earlier this year. There are 24 historic bridges listed on most sites for New York. Unfortunately, Irene in 2011 washed away Blenheim. So that means 23 remain. A few years ago, I had set a goal to shoot each and every historic bridge in New York.

(Two excellent sources for New York covered bridges include: New York State Covered Bridge Society and Covered Bridge Site).

I’ll include all 24 as I, thankfully, has been to Blenheim.

Of the two dozen listed, I’ve now visited 14 of the bridges. Two of them are purely accidental. Let me explain.

Several months ago, a new cache was listed in our area. It was a covered bridge, so I decided to head over and make the find. After finding that one at Millbrook Bridge, I decided to head to another that was hidden at another, more modern covered bridge. Along the way, I passed two other covered bridges. Figuring I was here, I took photos. One was private, so I stayed on the main road and took a few snaps. I then went to the modern one and then tucked all the photos away.

Then, as I was trying to figure out what covered bridges I had been to/shot and which I needed to visit, I realized these two were historic bridges.

Score!

So that helped the total.

Of the remaining covered bridges, three are private. One seems to be able to be shot from the public road, one is at an educational place where permission is likely not too hard to get and the final is at a place not far from me, but appears to be hard to get permission. That might be the tough one. I do have a phone number, so I’ll see what I can do to be able to secure permission. I have heard, however, that the bridge has been quite damaged from the 2011 floods.

There are also a handful of authentic and non-historic covered bridges in the state, but for now, I’m concentrating on the one list.

Somebody jogs through Hamden Covered Bridge.

It looks like I’ll have some planning to do.

That being said, by looking through my list of covered bridges, I realize I often take different angles (as well as the traditional ones), but I don’t focus on some things others do, such as the inside. Though I find the trusses for the bridges highly interesting, often it’s tough for me to get good photos. A lot of times, I want to make sure I capture what draws me to the bridges, which is more of the outside.

In the near future, I’ll be updating my Flickr collection with more covered bridges — ones I’ve already shot and ones I hope to shoot this week. Then my quest for the remaining 10 I need in New York will continue.

You can see my collection of sets on Flickr. It will be constantly updated as I add more bridges.

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