I just love this song. Always have.
“We have a huge Bridge!”
Not only is it huge, roughly the size of the Golden Gate and Verrazano, but it is still the ONLY bridge of its class hundreds of miles from even a medium sized city.
In a little over 2 weeks, the next FReepathon will begin.
We need to finish this one first.
Come on FReepers, let’s do this!!!
Not sure that’s the music I’d want to hear while crossing that bridge.
Also, I’d be worried about being rammed by the Cat Stevens.
Should have known the song was gonna be that.
That ore boat had a loose keel. It was supposed to be either sent to be dismantled and redone or scraped after that run.
They would drive steel plate under the ribbing to tighten up the keel and weld them in.
Should not have been on the lakes at that time.
Us old timers referred to those ships as Boats and not ships at that time. On the lakes they were called boats and anything in from the ocean going vessels were called ships. Why? Because the keels are different, the lakes vessels have a flatter or more rounded bottom and a wide beam and rounded bow. Matter of fact, some of the older ore vessels now have had the back cut out and fitted so they can push them with tugs. Back in the day, they would even tow them.
Been over that bridge many a time.
I was born and raised in Michigan and my parents were born in the northern Lower Peninsula.
I was stationed in North Dakota for too many years and I would take my two weeks of leave and drag my family to my parents place near the Manistee National forest. While driving on US Highway 2 when I saw the bridge towers I would know I was only a couple hours from home.
I loved driving over the bridge.
“I’ve got a Gal in Kalamazoo”
-The full clip of the Glenn Miller band with Tex Beneke and one of the greatest dance routines ever in movies by the Nicholas Brothers. From the 1942 movie “Orchestra Wives”
https://youtu.be/fFv_PoZ2iP0
7:42
Mike Rowe does a Cable Light Change on the Mackinac Bridge
2013
https://youtu.be/zmQgQr9t3kQ
2:35
Different lake of course, but that song brings back so many memories.
Nice foliage- a quintessential damp fall day!
I’ve crossed The Bridge many times back and forth from where I grew up in Iron River to Fort Wayne, where I went to school. I always had the choice to go the other way around Lake Michigan and through Chicago in 10 hours or The Bridge route through most of both Michigans in 11 hours. I always liked the easier Bridge route except for white knuckle thing I have never got over.
Ping
Great link! Having worked in SE Michigan for over half a century, with family in Northern Minnesota, I have driven that route hundreds of times. We also have a daughter and in-laws who work within walking distance of Mariners’ Church of Detroit, so We have visited there, too. I remember well, swimming in the frigid waters of Lake Gitchegumee as a child, and also the Stormy November night when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down.
I've ridden her many times on the Road King. Only once have I ridden her entire length with the concrete lanes open. Usually, somewhere along her length the outer lanes are closed down for maintenance and you're forced on to the bridge grate lanes to have your wheels shifted back-and-forth just to make things exciting.
That crossing was in the fall, appropriate weather for that song. Northern Michigan and the UP are absolutely gorgeous with the fall colors.......
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald...dad has a model of it. A 15 year old is the youngest to die in the wreck...if I read correctly...
Having grown up in the shadow of that bridge, I’m scratching my head what the Edmund Fitzgerald has to do with crossing it. The Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior, a long way from the Mackinac Bridge.
They might as well have played “Detroit Rock City”.
As a tyke I was raised along the shores of western Michigan. Muskegon, Montague, Whitehall and Shelby. Have never had a chance to drive the bridge tho. But back in the 80s I had access to a Mooney which I flew around/across the US several times. On one trip I made it a point to do the bridge. Put the Money about 200 feet off the starboard wing throttle back and checked out the bridge. It is a big WOW! Just a bit more on that trip. Landed on Mackinac Island and stayed the night. Got up, ate and went to take off. The runway was kinda covered in geese. :<(((( Had to taxi all the way down to the end a back again to clear the strip. Off to somewhere in Wisconsin.
Great view from the top.
I am beginning to consider retiring in the UP...
“Terrified Driver Faces One of America’s Scariest Bridges During a Snowstorm”
https://youtu.be/kVA_-Wx2tBI
1:29