A minor

I-10 Over Atchafalaya Basin

I had to make a quick trip to New Orleans this week for a day of Kinko's meetings and training. Since I was heading in that general direction, Hollie decided to ride along and take Ethan to visit her family in Lafayette; I dropped them off Tuesday night and headed down to New Orleans by myself. Driving the 18 miles of elevated Interstate over the Atchafalaya Basin a couple times was enough to get me thinking (as if driving alone isn't enough in itself to turn one contemplative) about the wealth of this land. I've driven it before, but this time I started wondering how much it cost to build this section of highway. Apparently cost was no object.

It's incredible. If you've never driven it or anything like it, imagine a largely tree-lined bridge that spans lake after lake, all conjoined to form a wetlands of a few thousand square miles. If you're in Moscow, imagine a bridge all the way to Potlatch. If you're in Monroe, imagine driving a few miles past Calhoun on a bridge. If you're somewhere else, think of a place between 15 and 20 miles away and...you get the picure.

This has to be one of the longest elevated roads in the world (on the nation's longest highway) - all between Lafayette and Baton Rouge.

Amazing.