What Bridge?

Since Ron's fishing license ran out, we had to find something interesting to do. One of the handouts from the visitors center talked about the Cut River Bridge. It sounded pretty interesting and was right on US 2, just west of where we are staying. Well, we came from Manistique on that road and I think we would have noticed a 641 foot bridge, 147 feet above the river. Then we remembered the detour and guessed that the bridge is having some work done.

We didn't let that stop us, though. The section of the road that was closed was only about two miles long, so we decided to park at one end and walk it. I was hoping for the east end, but there was no place to park there, so we went to the west end in the little town of Epoufette. After walking about a mile, we came to the bridge. Sure enough, they were resurfacing it so we couldn't go out on it. However we did don our fashionable mosquito headgear and hike down to the river. It turned out to be more like a creek, but it was amazing how deep the valley was since it was just a culvert on the detour we had taken.

More bad news after all our efforts, the sun was wrong for both sides of the bridge. This is the best I could do. It's a cantilever bridge - rare in Michigan which doesn't have the steep valleys of other states.


So I settled for a shot of where the Cut River trickles into Lake Michigan.


After hiking back up and returning to town, we stopped at the Cut River Inn for lunch and they had this incredible 3D carving of the bridge on a Moose antler. It doesn't show up very well in the picture, but it was better than the real thing. Picture me standing on the chair to get this shot.


Ron had one of the famous UP pasties. Brought to Michigan's Upper Peninsula by the Cornish miners over 150 years ago, they actually date back 800 years. Ron's was filled with beef, pork, potatoes, and rutabagas. I told him the gravy wasn't traditional (I was going to say kosher,) but he said it was very good that way.

This picture demonstrates just how much photography has changed since digital came on the scene. Ten years ago, I never thought I would be taking pictures of half-eaten food. Or that anybody would look at it!