Working to save Highway from itself, and Mother Nature

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• It's going to be so different when I finally get back for a visit! This looks like another place entirely. Will feel strange.

• What a treat, thanks for this, Kate. It's so impressive, annoying for a traveling resident but impressive to see. The design is beautiful, it has a kind of 1800's look to it. The interior arch in your inside tunnel arch shot shows no keystone and I didn't know you could build an arch without one. Maybe it's decorative not supporting. The exterior front's got a handsome keystone. Will go research. Keystone holycowcopper XXOO

• Well it was a short but worthy hike. According to more than one authority you DO NOT need a keystone in an arch. You need something, and voussoirs are an answer which are several stones that do everything the keystone does. I think that was the gist. In 10 minutes I was lost to ancient Masonic Rituals, Holy Scripture, old Egypt, and that the Greeks, says someone, didn't have any use for arches at all. So there's a lot to the arch and keystone, more than meets the eye. Also, vibration can shave a keystone, which is called then a Bald Keystone. But it takes a couple of centuries, and doesn't seem to matter. And yes, gorgeous stone, color and form in the Big Sur arches. Screw the keystoneless, drive with confidence.

• Those chiseled rocks are a thing of beauty;
  though, the entire covered-bridge looks like a structure from the ancient Middle East transported and pasted onto the side of a Big Sur cliff.
  Or, perhaps, some type of blocky insect making its way along the coast.
  Thank you for the pics, Kate.

• Thanks for the tour of Neo-Highway One in Big Sur. When will the entire 70 miles be covered in those lovely arches?

• P.S: The sculpted rocks look nice, but they are certainly not load-bearing - not in sliding earth / earthquake country. All the rebar in picture three makes it pretty clear that the structure is heavily reinforced concrete as it must be to withstand the forces it will be subject to. Great pictures Kate. I appreciate the update.