Remember memorial day weekend?

Those that went to Canada will in a second. Let's see. What happened?
1) We caught a lot of fish. Well, Keren caught most of them, and she also caught Walter the Bass at the river inlet on the Northeast side of Lake Duborne. In case you forgot, it was on a Shad Rap.
2) We rode 4 wheelers back to Stinky Lake and saw some beavers. Ben won the race back home.
3) Ben smoked some people at horseshoes.
But most of the weekend chatter centered around the events on the Mackinac Bridge, the Thursday (or was it Friday?) before Memorial Day. Does this remind you of anything?

You can see it's on our TV. Keren got a good shot of it last night. There's a tiny guy in an orange suit atop one the towers of the Mackinac Bridge. He's changing a light bulb, just after he painted the inside of one of the towers, and painted some of the green cabling. Look a little closer. Here he is climbing up the suspension cables.
Yep, it's Mike Rowe, from one of our favorite shows, Dirty Jobs, on Tuesday night. It's the latest episode. He was on the Mackinac Bridge Memorial Day weekend. There were numerous sightings. He seemed to be satisfactorily freaked out by the heights climbing up the cable, and he did a lot of complaining climbing down the inside the tower to paint it. We learned a bit about the bridge.
1) There is indeed an elevator that runs up the towers, but it's more fun to climb the cables.
2) Since the road doesn't rest directly on the towers (it's suspended form the cables), the road sways by up to 25 feet (7-8 meters). The oscillations are low enough frequency that you don't ever notice it.
3) One can climb down the towers on a ladder, inside a tight, claustrophobic tunnel. They repaint the inside of the the bridge too!

Here's a last parting shot, where they are just beginning their ascent up the cables. There's the camera crew down below them, and I'm sure their helicopter is hovering somewhere...WAIT! Look at the red minivan! Zoom in on the passengers. Could it be? Nooooooooo.



Posted by ben. Photography by Keren