Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

We conked out around 7 on Sunday night so Monday started as the best of both worlds: early and well-rested. It promised to be a scorcher, so we hastened through some much-needed cleaning before the sun warmed things up too much. Our apartment gets a ton of sun and thus very hot; hopefully in another few years, if we're somewhere similar, I'll be over myself enough to just get the damn AC unit. Soon, we headed down to the water, hoping for some breeze.

I commute over the Little Bay Bridge and watched with interest through the early spring as the bridge it replaced, the General Sullivan, was worked on through the winter and early spring. Cranes shifted by the every few days and spindly new paths grew towards landfall in Newington and Dover.

Why? The work actually had nothing to do with non-motorized traffic - which was temporarily left without a link between Newington and Dover -and everything to do with the Little Bay Bridge Expansion. Believe it or not, there's room to fit a new four-lane span between the two current bridges. Construction of the center span requires the space used by the former General Sullivan approaches, so new approaches needed to be built off to the side. The center span construction will last well into 2013 and promises to be interesting.

Already, machinery is starting to be put in place to build the new span. The Hilton Drive underpass of the Little Bay Bridge, connecting the two sides of Dover Point and Hilton Park, will probably remain closed for a couple of years.

The roadway on the bridge is vaguely reminiscent of The Road, but that world was never this sunny. I have a memory of driving across the bridge, but it closed in 1984 so it's a false recollection.

Great Bay was full of boaters; a few struggled with the stronger-than-ever tides but most powered through with incident, some with a little help from a larger friend.

There were a mildly unnerving pair of signs on the Newington side, even though the section wasn't close to capacity.

There was a nice breeze on the bridge, and it was fun to watch the cars and boats, so we hung out until it was time for Alicia to go to work. On the way out, I noticed an old sign - a relic of the days when the Spaulding Turnpike was at times un-numbered and NH-16 was the local alternative (today's Dover Point Rd, for instance) between Newington and Rochester. I noticed on my way home from work today that there is at least one similar sign east of the highway in Newington, but there must not be many more.

I can't find a date for when the numbering switched, but I think it was sometime in the early 1990s. There was a ripple effect: NH-125 was extended northwards from Rochester to northern Milton to replace the old 16, NH-108 was extended from its intersection with Dover Point Rd through Dover and Somersworth, all the way to Rt 125 in Rochester. Dover Point Rd lost its state highway designation, and Old Rochester Rd ceased to be NH-16B. I think Rt. 33 was modified as well.

Today, the NH-16 vs. Spaulding Turnpike lives on for one brief stretch: ramps to / from I-95. This is visible both north- and southbound, but is most obvious southbound, where Rt. 16 is signed as leading to the traffic circle and the Spaulding takes you to the interstate. My guess is that this is to establish unique names for 911 caller location.

After Alicia left, I spent some more time in the relative cool of the park, picked up CSA veggies, and eventually joined the crowd at Henry Law Park for the Dover Independence Day celebration. The band, Locksley, played pretty good pop songs with nice vocal harmonies but seemed to struggle to find energy; the crowd was understandably more there to have fun with family & friends than for the show. A medley of "Last Night" and "American Girl" stood out for being a cool and unique similar-songs connection. I got a good start on a promising book before it got too dark to read and fireworks from all around served as taps for the holiday weekend.