On our trip to California last month, one of the destinations on our itinerary was the Golden Gate Bridge. We thought the kids would enjoy seeing it. We explained the significance of the Bridge to them, a bit of it’s history, and promised we'd stop at the viewing area to take it all in.

What we hadn’t taken into account was how many people would be doing the exact same thing! We did stop at the viewing area and it was crowded, we didn't spend much time there. We sat them on the wall, took two quick pictures (we were holding up a lot of pedestrians while we took those two pictures) and then climbed back into our vehicle. We were off to the next item on our itinerary (Pier 39, of course!).

Later that week, when we returned home, the kids were anxious to tell everyone they met about our trip.  As I listened to their many stories about California the only bridge that was mentioned was the Bay Bridge.

The Bay Bridge? I didn’t take one photo of the Bay Bridge. See, I was having a few technical difficulties as we crossed the Bay Bridge. Did you know they are building a new portion of the Bay Bridge?

(photo from baybridgeinfo.org)

The kids were impressed with the construction equipment involved in creating a new bridge. Faces smooshed against the windows, they repeatedly cried out, “Crane!” “Huge crane!” “No, it’s a ginormous crane!” (Don’t worry. Ginormous isn’t found in my dictionary either, but our three year old likes to invent her own words.)

Do you know what I was doing at that time? Thinking about the men and women who built that bridge. Built that bridge that is so very high up in the air. I was dizzy just thinking about it. Do you know what I did next? Take a picture of their amazing work? Nope. Covered my eyes and tucked my head between my knees, of course! Who knew I had such a fear of heights? And while we’re at it, who knew that fear of heights falls under the heading of “technical difficulties”?