Seven Red Bridges

Today, Saturday July 6, we headed south to Northfield on Route 12. Our ride along passengers were my mom and dad, Al and Dot Woodward. They weren't sure what to expect! Finding some of those bridges ... tricky business.   The bridges were all in beautiful shape and all but one was a bright red.

Northfield Falls or Station Bridge

All 5 of the Northfield covered bridges were nicely labeled with name, date and bridge style.

Northfield Falls or Station Bridge

The Northfield Falls bridge is less than a quarter mile from the Lower covered bridge. It was fun photographing one from the other! After the longish ride from Fairfax to Northfield we enjoyed strolling between the two bridges.

These bridges were really close together.  The first bridge was over Dog River and the second one was over the Cox Brook. Cox Brook was very pretty with a series of waterfalls.

Lower Covered Bridge

Things got a bit wild for a bit after we crossed the Lower Covered Bridge as two ladies walking a dog came upon a very friendly or brave cat who headed right for the dog. The lady with the dog panicked saying the dog hated cats. The other lady picked up the friendly cat and held her until the cat's owner appeared finally and took the cat away. Across the road from the lady with the cat was this little cottage/barn and the horses totally oblivious to all that was going on just a few feet away!

About another half mile up Cox Brook Road we came upon the Upper Covered Bridge. This one had side windows.

Upper Covered Bridge

The Slaughter House Bridge was just a bit further down Route 12. It also crossed the Dog River. 

Slaughter House Bridge

After lunch we began a search for two covered bridges located off of 12A. After a bit of searching we found Moseley Bridge on Stony Brook Road. However we were unable to locate Chamberlin bridge, a privately owned bridge somewhere in the area.  I saw a picture of it in Ed Barna's Covered Bridges of Vermont.  It kind of looked like a small shed!  Oh well. Our goal is all of the Public bridges.

Moseley Covered Bridge

South of Northfield we headed east on route 64. It was quite bumpy so we hopped on Interstate 89 south to Randolph. From there we bounced our way to East Randolph on Route 66. (Highway dollars could easily be spent on that road I'm telling you!) The Braley Covered Bridge was cute when we finally found it! The JIMAPCO Vermont Road Atlas had it and the next bridge mislabeled and mislocated!  A few side trips later we found them both! At one point we were headed up Laughing Lane and I'm pretty sure my dad thought we were nuts. It was a dead end road about the width of a car. He was fairly certain we weren't going to find a bridge going uphill! We didn't.  The Braley bridge wasn't really that hard to find when "on the Braley Bridge Road"! We just hadn't gone far enough.

Braley Bridge in East Randolph

This is an example of multiple king post over multiple king post.

I like the  edging detail on the front of the Braley bridge.

Thank goodness for bridge notes I had from Dale Travis' website or we might have given up! Gifford Bridge was only about mile from the Braley Bridge on Hyde Road.

Gifford Bridge

Our final bridge of the day was the Kingsbury Covered Bridge in South Randolph.  This our only brown bridge of the day was rebuilt in 2009.

Kingsbury Bridge in South Randolph

All of the bridges had really high water rushing under them today! We saw many flooded or water damaged fields.  Feeling so sorry for the farmers.  All of the corn looked pretty desperate!  We need some hot, sunny days to dry things out a bit or a lot!

My mom was surprised at the excellent condition of the bridges and all that we went through to find them.  I'm not sure if they will be so quick to say yes when invited again!

That's all from the back roads today. Our new total is 42 wonderful covered bridges!

Happy trails.  Nancy

PS.  I will be starting a new retirement job next week driving cars for Enterprise Rent-A-Car.  I think I might blog about all of the cars I'll get to drive, how many miles I log, and where they send me.  I will be driving anything from a Chevy Spark to a Cadillac Escalade! More adventures I'm sure!