The Tale of Ghosts, Munchkins, Musical Bridges, and Man-Made Animals:
The plan was to go to Los Angeles for the day to explore a few different and unusual things that we investigated via Google. However, laziness was taking over as on this dreary gray day in Southern California, the warmth of a couch was more inviting.
As the morning was slipping away, a few of us decided that we had to get going and seize the day. Los Angeles was out of the question now because it was already approaching noon and L.A. is a two hour drive.
So our trusty search engine found a few out of the ordinary things to do in the nearby San Diego area that sounded interesting.
Each one on its own wouldn’t be worth the drive but we bunched a few together since they were all within five miles of each other.
With a plan of action and directions in hand, we set off to visit four unusual things to do in San Diego.
The 25th Street Musical Bridge
On one of the lists we read, it told about a bridge in San Diego that has 488 chimes on its rail that If struck would actually play music.
Artist Roman de Salvo and composer Joseph Waters created this unusual musical display by attaching brass pipes over the steel bars of the railing. A song was created by cutting each pipe a certain length to create different notes. These brass pipes fit over the steel bars of the railing so that when you hit them with a stick or metal piece, you could create a musical tone and if done right, play the song.
So the information we received said to bring something like a stick or a metal rod as a bare hand wouldn’t work. Basically, it is like a giant xylophone in the form of a guard rail next to the sidewalk.
On this Saturday afternoon, the bridge was easily found and I asked a passerby if that was the musical bridge since nobody was on the sidewalk. He didn’t know so it made me wonder if we would look stupid going back and forth whacking on the railing.
Then I looked over at Staycationer JoJo and saw what she brought to hit against the pipes. It was a hollow plastic vacuum cleaner attachment!! You know the kind you use to get in corners and behind furniture. I thought to myself, is that is all she could find?
The bridge was in fact the musical bridge and it sat above a noisy highway. I found this odd but as it turns out, I preferred the noise of the cars below over the awful concerto JoJo was playing. Yes I could hear the ringing of the pipes and I am sure with a piece of metal it would sound quite nice. However, the clattering of the plastic attachment overwhelmed the mellow wind chime type ringing coming from the railing. What was supposed to be a pleasing sound was actually, ok, I will say it…annoying.
I don’t think the composer had vacumn cleaner attachments in mind when he designed the musical pipes.
If you choose to go, you can find the bridge on 25th Street in San Diego near F and G streets. It hovers over the State Route 94 freeway. Take it from me, bring something metal.
Staycations California 