Tuesday, January 26, 2010

ABC Wednesday: B is for Bridgeport, CA or Beef?!

Bridgeport, California is at Eastern Sierra on the Highway 395 between its junction with Rt. 108 and Rt. 120. Both routes cross the Sierra Mountain to the West Coast. Rt. 108 is also know as Sonora Pass Highway and the part of Rt. 120 that cross the Sierra Mountain alone the Yosemite National Park is also known as Tioga Road. Both roads close during the winter snow season. We were fortunate that we were able to pass both highways during our photograph tours to Yosemite National Park and Eastern Sierra last october.

The Highway 395 provides easy access to the north (Lake Tahoe-Reno), south (Death Valley, Las Vegas, Los Angles), east (Salt Lake City) and west (Yosemite, Sonora). In addition to the easy access to all directions, Bridgeport has its own attractions of trout fishing, hunting and winter sports.

In reality, the town is just houses along a segment of Highway 395, less than a mile long with several motels, one supermarket/grocery store, a butcher, several sandwich shops and restaurants. The most important structure in the town is the Bridgeport courthouse, an impressive Victorian building completed in 1881. It is featured in the first three pictures.

After our visit to Yosemite National Park, we took the Tioga road to cross the Sierra Mountain and used Bridgeport as a base to visit many surrounding attractions such as Bodie, Twin Lake, Mono Lake, South Tufa, etc.

This is the outside terrace of Bridgeport Inn, built in 1877, one of the better hotel/motel/restaurant in town. You can see Grace's reflection on the stool.

Here is the entrance of Bridgeport Inn, we went there for lunch sandwich the first day, we went for steak dinner the next and we went bak for prime-rib dinner the last day. All around Bridgeport are cattle farms. I was at the local butcher for a fresh made roast beef sandwich one lunch time, a couple of cowboys walked in. "Relatives are coming, we need some meat", they said. The steaks were 1 1/2-inch thick, the size of a large dinner plate, the pork chops were 2-inch thick. I have never seen so much meat for a dinner party before. By the way, if you bring your own deer (presumably dead one that you hunted down that morning), the butcher will skin, clean, cut for you at a cost of $100.

After all that beef, very delicious beef I must say, where are the leftover. They are high up in the air.

This one is a real long-horned cattle. The aspen tree was in perfect yellow Fall color in the background.

Well, Bridgeport is such centrally located for the travel in Eastern Sierra, of cause it has a garage. I like the symmetry of this photo.

Click here to see several of our past blogs of our photographic trip at Eastern Sierra, or here for our photos of the Eastern Sierra.

To see more entries of ABC Wednesday click here.

28 comments:

♥♥ Willa ♥♥ said...

B is for Beautiful and Brilliant photos of yours...
ABC Wednesday

Sylvia K said...

Terrific, informative post as always! Beautiful photos! Hope your week is going well!

Sylvia

Tania said...

Looks like a very nice place and of chourse great shots;-)

Dina said...

Wonderful reflections and uhh ... skulls. :)

Amy said...

We've traveled up and down #395 many times - such beauty! Your photos really captured the spirit of the place(s). That blue window would have been perfect for my "b" today!

jabblog said...

What a very entertaining and interesting trip. Thank you for sharing :-)
ps: the photograph you refer to is 40 years old!! :-)

Rune Eide said...

I liked the way you had used the reflections in the first pictures to tell the introduction. I must make a note of that.

Jane Hards Photography said...

It's the words aswell as the images that go together so well. you do get a real feel of the place.

Anna said...

An interesting post - the courthouse is a most elegant building!

Leslie: said...

Gee, fantastic photos of a place that sounds intriguing. I love that shot of the stools. :D

Reader Wil said...

A perfect series of photos of another part of the world. ABC makes travel all around the globe! Thanks for your visit and comment.

James said...

Hi. These pictures are fantastic and I love the wonderful reflections!

Roger Owen Green said...

Love those little towns. They seem to each have character of its own.

On behalf of the ABC Wednesday team, thank you!

Joy said...

Love the blue autumn days of the photos and sharp light that capture the spirit of the town.

Vicki ~ FL said...

Bridgeport is a cool little town...

Unknown said...

What a wonderful place. I LOVE your pictures. I want to go visit : ) Very, very pretty!

Jay said...

Sounds like a good deal, $100 to butcher a deer! Not something I'd like to undertake!

I love the photo of the longhorn cattle against the aspen tree.

photowannabe said...

Very beautiful photos. I love the trip you were on and the scenery is grand. Your picture of the stools on the porch is great. I like the composition and the perspective.

Hildred said...

Wonderful country, - special photos. Thanks for sharing.

Diann said...

Looks like a wonderful place to visit!

Anonymous said...

I love the photo of the skull and the large coiled metal (a spring?) against a deep blue sky. :)

??? said...

Lovely photos - but now I'm hungry for beef and we planned a vegetarian dinner today ;)

Gordon said...

Great shots and interesting commentary. I like beef too, but I don't have the apetite of those cowboys!

DeniseinVA said...

Brdigeport looks like a really neat place to visit. Thank you for sharing it through these delightful photos.

Nydia said...

I felt like walking around! Breat post, very informative indeed!

Kisses from Nydia.

Tumblewords: said...

Wonderfully photogenic B's!

mrsnesbitt said...

Are you far from Palm Springs? We have friends there right now!
Thanks so much for contributing.
Denise, on behalf of ABC Team

Janie said...

Bridgeport looks like an interesting place. I like the Victorian courthouse. Great reflection shot on the metallic stool.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails