The Bridges of the Sacramento Delta: #DeltaLife

In the landlocked Midwest, a forty-five minute commute typically means leaving the tree-lined suburbia for the bustle of an urban core with towering office buildings and noisy streets. In the Delta, a forty-five minute drive takes you over a bridge or a ferry from one lovely bend in the river to another.

With seven hundred miles of waterway and over a thousand square miles of land, the Sacramento Delta provides a home for 600,000 year-round residents. Access to the Delta land or water takes one past fifty-seven reclaimed islands formed by years of river sediment. The major rivers of the area, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, wind through verdant vineyards, groves of olive trees, and fields of row crop such as corn and rice.

For generations, people have vacationed in the Delta. But many make their home on the banks of the rivers here. For those who do, travel to and from work often takes them across one of the beautiful bridges here. A traffic jam in the Delta can mean that the drawbridge up ahead has been raised to allow a tug to push a barge, or a majestic sailboat to make its steady way upriver. Often, ships with their cargoes of merchandise move steadily toward Stockton or out to sea.

The bridges of the Sacramento Delta mean both insulation from the hustle of Bay life and access to it. Their lovely architecture rises into the sky. Though mild grumbling might ensue if a bridge gets stuck in the “up” position, no one can resist staring at the wonder of a draw bridge swinging wide or raising high to let a boat continue down the Sacramento. That’s #deltalife, and we wouldn’t trade it for the world.