This was the next clue presented to me:
WHAT NOW?!? Seek direction from Delphi's priestess (the oracle of Delphi) at her temple.
This one was hard, too. The oracle of Delphi was called the Pythia. When I entered "Pythia" and "temple" into the decipherer, the Pythian Temple in Tacoma came up. I'd never even heard of it. It's the local HQ for The Knights of Pythias, a Masonic-like fraternity/secret organization founded upon principles of loyalty, honor and friendship. And not being a Communist or gambler.
This was the outside of the temple in downtown Tacoma.
Once we got our scavenger hunt photo, Mike gave me the next clue:NONE SHALL PASS! You must first defeat the black knight, "Galloping Gertie," to prove yourself worthy of the quest to find the Holy Grail!
This one was fairly easy. The decipherer led me right to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. As part of the fun of the evening, we read a little bit about the history of each place we visited. The bridge had the history that was the most intriguing.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge (built 1938-1940), spanned Puget Sound between Tacoma and Gig Harbor. The bridge had a narrow roadbed with shallow trusses to allow the span to be flexible--too flexible, as it turned out. The lack of rigidity led to a tendency to sway, even in moderate winds. It soon earned the nickname "Galloping Gertie" and motorists came from hundreds of miles to go on the bouncing drive across.
On November 7, four months after the bridge opened for traffic, the center span began to sway in winds of only 40 mph. The bridge's construction and the effects of the winds upon it caused the center span to roll. The twisting became more violent and the supporting cable at the center snapped. The span was now undulating up to 28 feet and pieces of roadbed broke off. The bridge finally collapsed and plunged into Puget Sound.
There were no casualties except for a dog that was left behind in the only abandoned car on the bridge. The remains of the bridge were left on the bottom of the Narrows, where they continue to function as a man-made reef. The collapse was filmed, helping it to become one of the more conspicuous engineering failures in American history. As a result of the collapse, the methods for testing and building of bridges--including the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge that opened in 1950--were radically changed.
You can find a film about it on YouTube. This was the one Mike showed me when we got the the bridge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSxnw. It's amazing.
But our journey was far from over...
What an amazing piece of film history. In 1940 it's remarkable that someone even had a movie camera to film this. (We're so used to 10,000 cell phone cameras taking videos of anything and everything.) I loved the 'closed' sign at the end. The 'temple' was interesting too. Way to go Mike!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing Michelle.
This is an interesting date. I remember studying that bridge briefly in a class, probably physics. A cemetary and a temple in one date...that's groovy. We took the kids to the cemetary for the first time just after Violet's b-day. It was a bit chilly, but fun.
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