Day Three Hundred and Twenty-Three: Burning Bridges

Lawrence is going to have to pay their sanitation department a heap of overtime for hauling away this mess.

Recently the old Interstate-70 bridge crossing the Kansas River was the victim of two bombings - both well-planned, well-supervised, and well-executed.

The explosions are all part of the process of bringing the entire bridge - which carried traffic for 50 years - down to the ground now that the new-and-improved model stands directly to its north.

Many tools and pieces of machinery are currently on hand for the bridge construction and removal project.

The series of blasts brought out many spectators.

One particular spectator with a camera thought he would get a great picture of the day, but upon arriving found the bridge already toppled - the demolition was pushed up a half-hour due to weather concerns.

So the spectator with the camera settled for the pictures you see here instead.

All of the construction around town has caused changes in traffic flow.

Another bridge - this one connecting downtown to north Lawrence - sees a lot of delays...especially now that the flow of automobile traffic is temporarily dependent on the traffic of trains whose rails cross the only detoured route out of town.