The wayward bridge is back. The 50-foot pedestrian bridge that went missing on July 20 was returned this week to its original abode west of Calleguas Creek in Camarillo.

Residents who had grown accustomed to the bridge and the access it provided along a popular jogging and bike path had been frustrated by the bridge's disappearance.

The city removed the 20-ton prefabricated bridge because of peeling paint caused by a manufacturing defect, and although the repair was completed Aug. 3, the bridge languished for three weeks in a Ventura warehouse because of a strike by Southern California mobile crane operators. Without a crane to put it back in place, the bridge was stranded.

"It's been quite a saga, an epic in some ways," said Ruric Nye, president of Nye & Nelson Contractors Inc., the Ventura firm hired by Camarillo to have the bridge repainted and reinstalled.

"We never expected it to take this long, but with a strike on, we had to wait for an available crane," Nye said.

And not just any crane — the reinstallation required a 70-ton crane to balance the bridge over the drainage ditch it crossed, according to Ken Matsuoka, the city's principal engineer.

"We're happy the bridge is finally back where it's supposed to be. We know a lot of people missed it," Matsuoka said. He said the bridge and the entire bike path from Upland Road to Mission Oaks Boulevard will be open to the public today.

The process of repainting the bridge required it to be sandblasted to bare metal, and then three layers of paint were applied, Nye said. The repainting was done by A-1 Truck and Equipment Co. of Saticoy.

"It took five guys three days to paint it," said Chris Williams, A-1's paint manager. The size and detail were a challenge, he said.

"The sandblasting alone took 2 1/2 days. From start to finish, it took more than a week to complete," said Williams.

The city called in an authority to inspect the paint job. "We hired an expert to determine if the paint on the bridge would hold up this time," said Matsuoka. He said there are few qualified people in the country who do this sort of thing, but the city found one in San Francisco.

"He's a certified paint specialist with a master's degree in chemical engineering, a rare breed," said Nye.

Nye said the paint passed the inspection.

While the city gets a one-year guarantee, he said, the paint specialist thinks it will last 20 to 25 years.