Paragliding From Erie Mountain To Real Island On A Real Island

Saw that which you see above this morning via the You Know You're From Anacortes When...Facebook page.

In the center of the photo that is a paraglider gliding from Mount Erie. Anacortes is a few miles to the northwest of this location. The Skagit Valley and my old home zone of Mount Vernon is a few miles to the east, or left, in the photo.

For someone from Fort Worth, unfamiliar with such, those chunks of land surrounded by water are what are known as actual islands. Not imaginary islands created by digging a cement lined ditch and diverting polluted river water into the ditch. 

The water you see in the distance is saltwater, part of the north end of Puget Sound. The water you see with an island in it is Lake Campbell. A freshwater lake. Lake Campbell is on Fidalgo Island, which makes that island in Lake Campbell a rare instance of an island on an island.

That body of land you see in the upper right of the photo is Whidbey Island, accessed via the nearby Deception Pass Bridge, or via ferry boat at two locations further south on Whidbey Island.

Fort Worth's imaginary island, if it ever sees that cement lined ditch successfully dug, will not need a ferry to access it. Access will be via three pitiful bridges, built over dry land, which have been stuck in slow motion construction mode, with an ever shifting project timeline, ever since 2014, with an, even then, astonishing four year project timeline.

That aforementioned Deception Pass Bridge, built almost a century ago, over actual deep, fast moving water, was built in less than a year. An actual feat of difficult engineering resulting in an actual iconic signature bridge.

Way back in October of 2014, about the time Fort Worth has itself a TNT exploding ceremony to mark the start of construction of its three little bridges being built over dry land, we blogged Washington's Deception Pass Bridge Took A Deceptively Short Time To Build. 

Who would have thought, way back then, in 2014, that in 2021 we would still be talking about those unfinished Fort Worth bridges being built over dry land? And that those responsible for this fiasco have not lost their jobs...