Posted on 03/17/2018 9:03:39 PM PDT by Voption
Mackinac Save
Nice foliage- a quintessential damp fall day!
I’m an old timer too and a former ship owner
to me a 26,000 tons deadweight cargo vessel is a ship by any measurement
You can put a boat on a ship but not vice versa
But I guess Lakes folk like to think of any lake vessel as a boat...fair enough
I drive that bridge a bit too
Family in TC
I remember that incident. It was a young woman driving home for Thanksgiving. The gales of November got her, too.
Holland and Grand Haven. My old stomping grounds!
BTTT
The Yugo was basically a suicide. The speed limit is 40. The driver was clocked at 70 and the car simply lifted off the bridge deck.
I used to drive busloads of kids across to a Christian camp in the UP. On windy days, we had to steer into the wind a bit then quickly straighten the wheel when we came to the concrete abutments.
The hub of the bus wheel was taller than the rail.
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
I loved Wurtsmith AFB.
I left Active Duty for a couple years to go back to Michigan and finish my college degree then earn my Commission. My older brother had done just that a few years before me and he was stationed at Wurtsmith as a new Lieutenant. My wife was able to also get stationed there while I was in college so we were only 185 miles apart and could see each other on the weekends.
During the Fall I would go up there and fish for salmon off the pier with my brother and also see my wife. We would also do a lot of hunting. It was fantastic and I got to see all the B-52Gs and the KC-135As.
My brother called his tour up there his four year paid vacation.
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.
I remember that Yugo incident quite well, we were on a skiing trip to Petoskey. The young woman got on the bridge and never reached the north side. No witnesses and no wreckage.
I was always really careful after that incident. Every time I take that bridge I can picture a small car hitting the first low rail, jumping the second rail, falling between the suspender cables and plunging into the straits below.
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”.
I don’t think they had much to choose from. How many popular songs have been written about Michigan or the Great Lakes?
“In order to make the bonds more attractive, the Legislature passed an act during the Spring of 1953 whereby the operating and maintenance cost of the structure, up to $417,000 annually, would be paid for out of gasoline and license plate taxes.”
Looks like they had a bit of help from the state, but bond holders (i.e., insurance companies) were on the hook for the vast majority of it (since they borrowed $99M).
http://www.mackinacbridge.org/history/history-of-the-bridge/
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.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.