Moving Day, Mackinac Bridge and Two Wrong Turns

Location: Straits State Park; St. Ignace, Michigan
(click pics to enlarge)

I left Traverse City State Park at 10:00 a.m. with a short 130 mile trip to the next campground. About 3 miles into the trip I made a wrong turn. As usual, I prepared turn by turn notes with mileage between turns and had them in the notebook on the console. I got lucky after making the wrong turn and found an old dirt pit that was open and had enough room to turn around. It was only a 10 miles round trip delay. The second wrong turn was taking the wrong exit ramp at the end of the trip. The correction was easier in that all I had to do was turn around in a truck stop. Two wrong turns while towing doesn't make for a stress-free drive, but I arrived at the campground around 2:00 p.m. By the way, I turned "Elise" on after the first wrong turn.

The new ground is the Straits State Park in St. Ignace, Michigan. It is located at the north end of the Mackinac Bridge. The bridge is one of the items on my "to see" list. The bridge connects the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. It spans the Straits of Mackinac which is the point where Lake Michigan connects to Lake Huron. The bridge was opened to traffic in November of 1957 and about 175 million vehicles have crossed it. It is the 3rd longest suspension bridge in the world and the longest in the western hemisphere. Eleven thousand people were employed during it's construction. 3,500 were employed at the bridge site and 7,500 were employed at quarries, shops, mills, etc. This is the value of infrastructure improvements, but only when the improvement is necessary and can be done quickly. The Mackinac Bridge was completed in 3 1/2 years which is very impressive for then and now.

I will be here thru Monday and pull out Tuesday morning. There are a couple nice things to explore in this area if the weather cooperates. The weather forecast is for thunderstorms tomorrow but clears on Sunday.

I took a lot of pictures today and narrowed them down to about 20. The captions will give information about the picture.

Mackinac Bridge in the distance

Approaching the suspension spans
Lake Michigan on the left
Lake Huron on the right



Inside the suspension wires



One of the main towers

About mid-span

Bridge Viewing area inside the campground

The Bridge from the Campground

The Bridge from the Campground

The Bridge from the Campground

Poison Ivy warning
(Pat, you may want to print this
and keep it with you)

The chairs on the left are
behind a house. They have a great
backyard

Lake Huron side of St. Ignace

The Bridge from the Bridge Viewing
Park of St. Ignace

The Bridge from the Bridge Viewing
Park of St. Ignace

A nice sitting bench at the
Bridge Viewing Park of
St. Ignace

A little bit of everything in this picture.
The bell is one of the original fog
bells from the bridge.
The statue on the left is a memorial
for the working who died while building
the bridge.
A bench with a nice looking "thinking" having a
seat.
And the bridge in the background.
All from the Bridge Viewing Park

Campsite at Straits State Park

Ya'll take care of each other. Cya down the road.