One day the bridge was there, the next day, it wasn't.

Last Saturday morning, when David MacCallum went for his morning jog along a popular bike path near his Mission Oaks home in Camarillo, the 50-foot pedestrian bridge he had traversed for months was gone.

"I couldn't believe a bridge that big could just up and disappear overnight," said MacCallum, who frequently used it and the bike path with his family.

The bridge, installed in April near Adolfo Road and Mission Oaks Boulevard, served as a pedestrian overpass that covered a drainage ditch west of Calleguas Creek. It was a strategic link in a paved bike path that stretches from Upland Road to Mission Oaks Boulevard.

The mystery of the missing bridge was solved with a phone call to City Hall.

"We removed it because the paint was peeling. We lifted it with a crane and put it on a truck," said Ken Matsuoka, the city's principal engineer.

He said the prefabricated bridge, which has no name, was built in Alexandria, Minn., and was designed for pedestrians and light vehicular traffic, like bicycles.

Unlike the old London Bridge — which was dismantled and shipped to Lake Havasu City, Ariz., in numbered stones — prefabricated bridges are essentially one-piece designs that snap into place like Tinkertoys, Matsuoka said.

"We had to remove the entire bridge to repaint it because we didn't want paint chips falling into the ditch and then migrating to the creek," he said.

Matsuoka said the bridge wasn't primed properly, which explains the peeling paint. Constructed with steel beams and wood decking, the bridge is still under warranty, so the city will not have to pay for the repair.

The bridge's repainting is being overseen by local contractor, Nye and Nelson Inc., in Ventura. The bridge will be reinstalled in early August.

"I'm glad to hear the bridge is coming back," MacCallum said. "I miss it."

The bridge was six months late in its journey from Minnesota to Camarillo, and residents have been frustrated with the slow progress of getting the project opened to the public.

"Bad weather in Minnesota contributed to the delay in getting the bridge here, but that is out of our control," said Matsuoka.

MacCallum is also frustrated by the on-again, off-again access to the bike path.

"Sometimes the gates are open and sometimes they're locked. It's so frustrating to go for a family bike ride or jog and not be able to finish the run," he said.

The city has been waiting to officially open the entire length of the bike path until the bridge is in place and operational, said Matsuoka.

"What some people have been doing is breaking the locks, and opening the gates. Then a couple of days later, our inspector has to relock everything," he said.

The newly painted bridge and bike path are set to officially open to the public sometime in mid-August.

"It's a boondoggle," MacCallum said. "If the bridge manufacturer had primed it properly, the paint would not have peeled, and the bridge would still be there."

Admirers of the bridge just want it to come home.