Swinging Bridges
After my parents got out of church this morning we went out to lunch at Dowd's Catfish house here in Lebanon, Missouri. Instead of getting an entree with sides I just made my meal out of appetizers. I had BBQ boneless wings, deep fried mushrooms, and jalapeno hush puppies. I'm not a total pig! I took about half of it home to munch on later that evening.
When I got home I was feeling really tired and wanted to lay down and take a nap. But before I had left I had stripped my bed and everything was in the laundry drying. So instead of a nap I went on a road trip! The weather was beautiful and since I hadn't been there in a while I decided to go to Swinging Bridges in Brumley, Missouri. Everyone calls it swinging bridges because there are two, but one of them is really small. The small one had a road surface of sheets of metal that look like the tin you put on a roof that is wavy instead of flat. The main bridge is the Grandauglaize Bridge is a wire suspension bridge built in 1922. It is 500 feet long and spans 414 feet, it's driving surface is made of wood. Last time I was there they were nailing the wood down and you could see nails sticking up where they had backed out. This time it looked like they had switches to bolting them down, but they might still be using a few nails here and there too I didn't look close.
A lot of people are afraid to drive across the bridge, which really doesn't bother me. It gets crossed probably a couple hundred times a day. It doesn't look to be in the best condition with some of the boards warped, missing, broken, and the metal cable frayed in spots.It is a one lane bridge, long and arched in the center so you can't see if a vehicle is on the other side. If you ever drive across it you need to stop, roll your windows down and turn the radio off so you can listen for another car coming. If you meet another car on the bridge someone is going to have to back up and most people are scared enough going forward across it.
I'm more afraid to walk across it than I am to drive across it! I didn't walk across it today and it's not the height or the condition, it was because of people! People are scared driving across it, while I was there two cars came through and the girls in them didn't look over 16. The first car had to stop on the side I was on taking pictures and wait about 5 minutes for the other car to work up the nerve to drive across.
I drove down to the campground area to take pictures under the bridge and three guys came across riding bicycles. They have bicycle helmets on, the tight outfits bicyclist wear, so I assume decent folk. They get back to their vehicle and I hear "It's still cold!" and see them start drinking beer. Which would have been fine if they were camping! But sure enough later when I was on the other side of the bridge taking pictures they had got their bikes loaded and were drinking and driving their way across it. I also saw a 24 pack beer case thrown behind their van which wasn't there when I pulled in, I didn't go back to see if they picked it up, I doubt they had though.
Then I saw a couple driving their dune buggy across the bridge a couple times. It's illegal to drive them on public roads, but I don't care. Except the lady driving it was just holding her baby on her lap, no a child a less than a year old baby with a pacifier in it's mouth. The guy was in the passenger seat with their toddler on his lap.
A few years back I was walking across the bridge with a friend and we almost got killed by a drunk driver. As we were walking across a pickup truck comes flying across it way to fast! Not driving in a straight line either! The guy in the passenger seat had a beer in his hand and the lady driving had a beer and cigarette in hers. No sooner had the rear bumper of the truck went past us than they hit the rail of the bridge narrowly missing us. The bridge shook like there was an earthquake, they busted their side mirror and glass from it was all over the bridge. I'm sure the whole side of their truck was skinned up too, but they never even slowed down.
When I finished and was ready to leave my Jeep decided to have an attitude and not want to start. I turned the key twice and all that happened was the lights came on the dash. On the third try it started, but acted like it wanted to die and I gave it some gas real quick to get the RPMs up. It was a little stressful because it's in the middle of nowhere and I had no cell phone signal. If I had to leave it there someone would have probably busted out the windows and stole everything they could off it. It drove fine on the way home. Had to drive a long ways just to get one bar back on my phone, probably drove 20 miles back towards home before I got decent signal again.
I got home less than an hour before the Super Bowl started. This would be the first NFL game I watched all year. After the crap with the kneeling I said I was going to tune out and I did. I only watched part of the game off and on when I wasn't ducking into the other room working on uploading pictures or going outside to play with the cats.
I was wanting to go to St. Louis tomorrow and stay a couple days, but that is getting postponed. I was thinking I'll go and get a hotel room before Valentine's Day. I figure a lot of couple's will be renting hotel rooms or going for a night out in the big city.... I was wrong! There must be something going on in St. Louis this week, because the rooms are about $20-30 higher at the hotel I wanted to stay in and later on in the week it's completely booked up. It's no big loss though, even though it's supposed to be warm the weatherman says thunderstorms Monday and rain on Tuesday.
When I got home I was feeling really tired and wanted to lay down and take a nap. But before I had left I had stripped my bed and everything was in the laundry drying. So instead of a nap I went on a road trip! The weather was beautiful and since I hadn't been there in a while I decided to go to Swinging Bridges in Brumley, Missouri. Everyone calls it swinging bridges because there are two, but one of them is really small. The small one had a road surface of sheets of metal that look like the tin you put on a roof that is wavy instead of flat. The main bridge is the Grandauglaize Bridge is a wire suspension bridge built in 1922. It is 500 feet long and spans 414 feet, it's driving surface is made of wood. Last time I was there they were nailing the wood down and you could see nails sticking up where they had backed out. This time it looked like they had switches to bolting them down, but they might still be using a few nails here and there too I didn't look close.
A lot of people are afraid to drive across the bridge, which really doesn't bother me. It gets crossed probably a couple hundred times a day. It doesn't look to be in the best condition with some of the boards warped, missing, broken, and the metal cable frayed in spots.It is a one lane bridge, long and arched in the center so you can't see if a vehicle is on the other side. If you ever drive across it you need to stop, roll your windows down and turn the radio off so you can listen for another car coming. If you meet another car on the bridge someone is going to have to back up and most people are scared enough going forward across it.
I'm more afraid to walk across it than I am to drive across it! I didn't walk across it today and it's not the height or the condition, it was because of people! People are scared driving across it, while I was there two cars came through and the girls in them didn't look over 16. The first car had to stop on the side I was on taking pictures and wait about 5 minutes for the other car to work up the nerve to drive across.
I drove down to the campground area to take pictures under the bridge and three guys came across riding bicycles. They have bicycle helmets on, the tight outfits bicyclist wear, so I assume decent folk. They get back to their vehicle and I hear "It's still cold!" and see them start drinking beer. Which would have been fine if they were camping! But sure enough later when I was on the other side of the bridge taking pictures they had got their bikes loaded and were drinking and driving their way across it. I also saw a 24 pack beer case thrown behind their van which wasn't there when I pulled in, I didn't go back to see if they picked it up, I doubt they had though.
Then I saw a couple driving their dune buggy across the bridge a couple times. It's illegal to drive them on public roads, but I don't care. Except the lady driving it was just holding her baby on her lap, no a child a less than a year old baby with a pacifier in it's mouth. The guy was in the passenger seat with their toddler on his lap.
A few years back I was walking across the bridge with a friend and we almost got killed by a drunk driver. As we were walking across a pickup truck comes flying across it way to fast! Not driving in a straight line either! The guy in the passenger seat had a beer in his hand and the lady driving had a beer and cigarette in hers. No sooner had the rear bumper of the truck went past us than they hit the rail of the bridge narrowly missing us. The bridge shook like there was an earthquake, they busted their side mirror and glass from it was all over the bridge. I'm sure the whole side of their truck was skinned up too, but they never even slowed down.
When I finished and was ready to leave my Jeep decided to have an attitude and not want to start. I turned the key twice and all that happened was the lights came on the dash. On the third try it started, but acted like it wanted to die and I gave it some gas real quick to get the RPMs up. It was a little stressful because it's in the middle of nowhere and I had no cell phone signal. If I had to leave it there someone would have probably busted out the windows and stole everything they could off it. It drove fine on the way home. Had to drive a long ways just to get one bar back on my phone, probably drove 20 miles back towards home before I got decent signal again.
I got home less than an hour before the Super Bowl started. This would be the first NFL game I watched all year. After the crap with the kneeling I said I was going to tune out and I did. I only watched part of the game off and on when I wasn't ducking into the other room working on uploading pictures or going outside to play with the cats.
I was wanting to go to St. Louis tomorrow and stay a couple days, but that is getting postponed. I was thinking I'll go and get a hotel room before Valentine's Day. I figure a lot of couple's will be renting hotel rooms or going for a night out in the big city.... I was wrong! There must be something going on in St. Louis this week, because the rooms are about $20-30 higher at the hotel I wanted to stay in and later on in the week it's completely booked up. It's no big loss though, even though it's supposed to be warm the weatherman says thunderstorms Monday and rain on Tuesday.
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