Starman
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2002
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I walked it in 1966, a week short of my 8th birthday. My dad maneuvered to get a prime camping space at Straits State Park, a half mile east of the bridge. We got up at 5:30, mom and dad had great smelling coffee off the Coleman stove. I was still on hot chocolate.
It was chilly and rainy as we walked over to the starting point near the toll gates. The bridge lights were still on, glowing in the haze. George Romney was leading the way; he arrived in a convoy of a half dozen cop cars. I don't remember if snotty teen Mitt was anywhere to be seen and wouldn't have cared anyway. Maybe he was busy strapping his dog to the roof of his car.
We took off at 6:45 am about 15 minutes after the huge opening surge and started the long climb. I was on my own, but my sister just turned 5 got to ride in a stroller pushed mostly by dad. We certainly didn't threaten any speed records, we chugged across in about three hours, averaging a brisk 1.7 mph. Pushing the stroller it probably wasn't a bad pace.
By about the time we passed the north anchorage and moved onto the suspended sections under the cables, the rain had quit and the sun was breaking through. Pretty much sunny the remaining two miles downhill to Mackinaw City; I actually picked up a little glow of a sunburn.
As soon as we hit the ground in Mackinaw City, we made a quick sprint for the porta potties (then as now, there were none on the bridge), then we lined up for buses to take us back to St Ignace. (They did that at the time, I understand they don't now. They used to draft dozens of school buses from school districts within 50 miles or so to truck the walkers back.)
Waiting for the buses, it started to sprinkle again and by the time our bus was moving it was pouring. By the time we were crossing the bridge the remaining walkers (by this time there weren't many) were drenched.
All the way back, the whole bus was singing "Yellow Submarine," which was at the moment a huge hit on the radio. Nobody knew the words other than the chorus because literally it had only come out like 3 weeks before. (Actually I take that back, the lyrics are pretty simple -- it wasn't "Subterranean Homesick Blues" -- and it was on the radio about every 90 minutes, so people really did know the verses.)
We got back to our tent camper about noon and gathered around the cozy Coleman stove.
Everybody crashed out for about a three hour nap and then we had to pack up the whole shebang by late afternoon for what should have been a 4-hour drive home (but ended up being about 5 1/2 after a massive traffic jam at the Clare intersection). We finally stumbled home about 10:15 pm, with school and work for everybody the next morning.
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