Today, I Didn't See A Bridge Blow Up

But it was still really exciting. Mom and I went to see the Lake Champlain bridge get imploded in a massive snowstorm. Yay! Surprisingly, it was her idea. We have this odd joint fascination with mildly violent scenes of action like demolition derbies and building implosions. Whatever. I knit, I cook, and I frickin' love a good bridge demolition. We tried to get the neighbors to go but in the end, it was just mom and me driving an hour to Addison county through a blizzard to watch a bridge get blown up. It took us forever to get there because apparently the rest of the state wanted to see it too and we were also stuck behind a salt truck sanding down the roads. We were not disheartened however, as we had plenty of Stuff You Should Know podcasts to listen to (we learned about redheads, cannibalism, habeas corpus, and why grooms traditionally carry their brides over the thresh-hold). We ended up parking (unclear to us at the time) 3 miles from the bridge and trudged jauntily through the snow with hoards of other crazy people. After about 15 minutes, we heard the explosion, but we kept walking until I forcibly turned mom around (the woman does NOT know when to quit). So in the end we didn't get to see anything, but because of the snow, even the guys doing the exploding probably didn't either. But that wasn't the point. I was trying to think what the point was exactly, because on the walk back to the car, I was filled with the greatest sense of joy and accomplishment, like I HAD witnessed something truly amazing. I have concluded (stereotypically and unoriginally) that it is not the goal of the experience that matters, but rather the process and the people whom you experience it with. The joy of this whole excursion was not the boom (although that was very cool) but really hinged on Stuff You Should Know and the cute dirty men in flannel who besides us made up most of the demolition watching crowd. I love my people. They are real and true and all mine. I don't think that anyone could find any better people in the whole world than the ones I saw today trekking three miles to watch a stupid bridge explode. They are troopers and adventurers, but they were not unhappy that they didn't see the spectacle. For them, it was the experience as well, and for me, well, really it was the crowd I came to see, so everyone went home happy. Now if you would like to hear the bridge go boom here's a link. It would be less lame if you could see it, but again, there was sort of a blizzard. Oop. found a  better one.