Clan Whipple: New stuff to see

With the amount of adventures we do, you'd think Shaw is never in school. He was out last week for October break. He's out 90 minutes early every day this week for Parent/Teacher conferences. He and I went and visited a new footbridge over Tempe Town Lake.

There is a rubber bladder dam under the bridge that stops the Salt River (Rio Salado) and creates the lake. A couple of years ago, the city attempted to save a couple of dollars by not replacing the bladders per the manufacturers recommendation and they burst- the lake drained out in one night. Lots of fish died and it reeked for a couple of weeks. It's been replaced and this new footbridge opened this last weekend. There are two traffic bridges and a train bridge about a mile away but this connects a couple of recreational trails that run the length of the Salt River with the Tempe Town Lakes Park.

You can't see it in this shot but there are misters that keep the bladder wet so that it doesn't get sun baked. It created a really cool rainbow. I'm not a great photographer and this is higher than you think. You are 40 to 50 feet off the river bed and 20ish feet above the water line on the other side of the bridge.

Waterfowl...

That building on the left is the Tempe Center for the Arts.

Shaw testing out the bridge. It seems to work.

That's looking down the river bed towards downtown Phoenix.

This is at Tempe Center for the Arts. I've done a few DJ jobs in that part of the building in the upper right corner of this shot. The water runs right up to the edge and from the inside, the reflecting pool just continues right on out to the lake... except you can see the bobbing head of a jogger or a cyclist going by once in awhile.

That's downtown Tempe. The building on the right is US Airways. The one on the left is Lifelock- the identity protection company. ASU's Sun Devil Stadium is on the backside of that mountain in the middle.