Coronado is my favorite part of San Diego. The historic Hotel del Coronado was the largest wooden building in the US when it was built more than a century ago . . . and it still is, today. Then we cross the enormous Coronado Bridge, completed and opened in July of 1969, the month before my family moved to San Diego.
The ‘zippers’ I keep talking about in the video are two machines that move large concrete blocks from one side of the middle lane to the other side on the bridge. It’s a 5-lane bridge, so in the morning, it’s 3 lanes inbound to San Diego, 2 lanes into Coronado. Late in the morning, the two zipper-mobiles drive across the bridge. As the front of the vehicle comes to the concrete block, the block is lifted on a conveyor under the machine, then dropped off at the opposite corner of the zipper. Each one is only long enough and wide enough to move the blocks half a lane, so the two travel in mated pairs, moving the blocks across the entire center lane twice each day. It’s fun to watch; the weirdest mix of high tech and low tech I’ve seen.
The incidental music is “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head” from ELO’s “Eldorado”