Towering deathtrap too terrifying to travel. For others, it’s a parking lot of taillights, or a Of boardwalk French fries await, no matter the Which sandy strands and vinegar-splashed buckets For some of the 27 million cars that crossĮach year, it is the gateway to vacationland, through The truth is, most people either love the bridge Having evolved into a quintessential symbol-aĢ0th-century architectural feat heralded as the It is the stuff of postcards and license plates, Which, from up there, seem to welcome its arrival. Sloping softly into the eastern and western shores, Sailboats, alongside seagulls and osprey, between foggy sunrises and against dazzling sunsets-before Halfway down the state, two silver ribbons of steel andĬoncrete seem to defy gravity as they float for more thanįour miles across the waters of the wide and majestic Chesapeakeīay, riding high-200 feet above seafaring ships and Memorial Bay Bridge-locatedĪnd Stevensville in Queen Anne’s-is the Maryland bridge. Street, and the Hatem Memorial, but as far as Here is the Francis Scott Key, and the Hanover Vintage postcard of the first span, connecting both To this day, we get to the top and I say, ‘Hey, that’s my bridge.’” “From up there, you can really see everything. “My husband and I used to go across all the time for vacation, to the beach, for Bike Week-we still do every year,” says Outerbridge, who recently moved to Pennsylvania. “We raced each other to see who could move the most vehicles.” Her record was 500 an hour.Įven on days off, she would find herself there. “The collectors would yell, ‘Here they come!’ and I’d say, ‘Okay, go get it!’” she says. During downtime, she’d read books, and on occasion, play ball in the center plaza with her colleagues until, inevitably, the cars returned. “Everyone had a story,” she says, not forgetting the grief she sometimes received from gridlocked travelers. Regulars would bring her coffee, and when traffic stalled, she’d chat with the passersby. In fact, Outerbridge preferred the busy shifts. “That first summer weekend really shook me, when you looked up and saw it-headlights-as far as the eye can see,” she says. But that was before she descended the stairs into the tunnel that snaked beneath Route 50, climbed up through a tollbooth door, and saw the volume of vehicles, first during the prime-time commute, then more still, during the height of Maryland and Delaware beach season. “When I was little, I thought, that looks like it would be an easy job-sit there and take money all day?” Outerbridge remembers. She was hired in 1986, working her way up to shift supervisor and manager before retiring last April, seeing many evolutions of that iconic crossing, from the removal of the westbound tolls to the addition of E-ZPass and the traffic that came with it. Years later, while working at the Department of Motor Vehicles, Outerbridge came across an open toll collector position for that very location-about 30 miles from her home in Baltimore County, just north of downtown Annapolis, on the heel of Sandy Point State Park, at the western edge of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. And when you got to the top, you saw all the boats, all the fishermen, and thought, ‘Oh, isn’t it pretty. “You were going to be in traffic, but you’d sit out there and eat snacks and play games-that was part of the experience, you know? It was fun. Outerbridge, 65, her eyes lighting up behind thin glasses. “We’d go to Ocean City, and with that, you knew, hey, we’re going to the Bay Bridge,” says Lynne Outerbridge’s parents would pack up the car and pile her in with her two sisters, bathing suits and beach towels in tow, before heading south, out of Dundalk, away from the asphalt heat of Baltimore, then onwards east, toward the cool breeze of the Atlantic Ocean.
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