All The Bridges I Have Known

[LivingInBeauty]

Some of the world's greatest stories involve bridges. Building bridges... capturing bridges... crossing bridges and lighting them afire. For better and worse, bridges establish challenging and sometimes incompatible connections. Every bridge crossing is an epochal moment, a promise to transport you into the future. Beauty and the Beast are our Bridge to Adventure, our Boredom Evacuation Plan.

https://livinginbeauty.net/2025/05/15/bridges/

[Dingo Girl]

Being a Michigan girl the Mackinac will always be my favorite.

[TitusNW]

I love bridges but I've made a personal pledge not to go over the Hood River Bridge again! 9.0 ft lanes with an 8' 6" trailer is too much stress. :-)

Steve

[Bearstream01]

Wow Living, you take some good pics!!!!
Titus, ooof that IS too much stress!!!
Speaking of stress, heres some from NYC… George Washington and from Throgs Neck, looking at the Whitestone in the distance.

[crispyboy]

I always enjoy reading your well written blog filled with great pictures.
Thank You!

[hhendrix]

Originally Posted by TitusNW

I love bridges but I've made a personal pledge not to go over the Hood River Bridge again! 9.0 ft lanes with an 8' 6" trailer is too much stress. :-)

Steve

I agree with you. I travel up and down the Columbia Gorge hiway more than a 100 times and I rarely cross that bridge. We had a club member hit be a long flat bed trailer and it was like someone took a can opener to his trailer. No place to stop until off the bridge and even then very limited space to park.

[LivingInBeauty]

Originally Posted by Dingo Girl

Being a Michigan girl the Mackinac will always be my favorite.

We agree, it is a beautiful bridge. We had a wonderful view of it from our campground in MackinacwCity.

[LivingInBeauty]

Originally Posted by TitusNW

I love bridges but I've made a personal pledge not to go over the Hood River Bridge again! 9.0 ft lanes with an 8' 6" trailer is too much stress. :-)

Steve

In the summer of 2018, we left the Salem International Airstream Rally and headed to Portland for a short visit with friends. While there we looked up and found a Harvest Host in Parkdale, Oregon, Montavon's Berries. We stayed there one night.



We then headed north on Highway 35 toward Hood River, planning to cross the bridge.

Not just a no, but a HELL NO, came out of our mouths, so we turned east on Highway 84 staying on the south side of the river until we could cross safely at Umatilla, Oregon on Highway 82.



Thanks for sharing your story. Jim

[LivingInBeauty]

Originally Posted by Bearstream01

Wow Living, you take some good pics!!!

Thank you... we try! Jim

[Andy543]

Originally Posted by Bearstream01

Wow Living, you take some good pics!!!!
Titus, ooof that IS too much stress!!!
Speaking of stress, heres some from NYC… George Washington and from Throgs Neck, looking at the Whitestone in the distance.

I love the George Washington Bridge. It is the world's largest bridge, in terms of revenue, by far, with 4 lanes of continuous 24 hour traffic and tolls ranging from $18 to $148. Take the Tappan Zee if you're running short on funds.

[LivingInBeauty]

Originally Posted by Andy543

I love the George Washington Bridge. It is the world's largest bridge, in terms of revenue, by far, with 4 lanes of continuous 24 hour traffic and tolls ranging from $18 to $148. Take the Tappan Zee if you're running short on funds.

We had a choice between crossing the George Washington Bridge or the Tappan Zee Bridge (now called the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge). We chose the Tappan Zee.

[djb75]

The Astoria Bridge is always a crowd-pleaser!

[LNBright]

I was going to post a pic of us driving the bridge in Key West, but realized, it was just looking out the windshield, doesn't include the Airstream.

However, when we did the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, the aircraft carrier passed overhead as we were in the tunnel, then after we emerged on the other side, I did stop to snap a pic of them together.

[overlander64]

I guess that I am something of a wet blanket when it comes to bridges. They are a necessary evil to me, and the only thing that impresses me is one that has nice, wide, lanes with solid pavement of either asphalt or concrete. I absolutely avoid any bridge that has a wire mesh bottom as they give me panic attacks in part because of their "see through" nature, and in part because the tow vehicle and trailer oscillate to a different rhythm that is very disconcerting.

Since I generally stick to secondary roads as 55 MPH is my preferred towing speed, I often have to plan for older bridges. Checking my route carefully includes a stop in the town nearest major river crossings to inquire as to the type and width of the bridge that I will encounter on my planned route. When I find that the bridge is either narrower than I care to cross or has a wire mesh bottom, I stop and plan a detour. My detours have been as much as 300 miles to avoid a hazardous bridge!

I live in the Land between the Rivers -- between the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers --where there are numerous bridges, and I have identified those bridges that I will utilize and those that are totally off limits. Two of the absolute worst that are nearby are the US 45 bridge over the Ohio that goes into Kentucky (connects Paducah, KY and Brookport, IL), and the US 51 bridge that goes into Missouri (connects Cairo, IL and Bird's Point, MO). I also travel the Great River Road with some frequency so have a list of bridges to avoid that I keep in the glove box of each of my vehicles.

The one and only exception to bridges, and one that I go out of my way to travel across whenever I get within its vicinity is the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. I actually find that I can enjoy driving across that bridge for some unknown reason.

Kevin

[GOUSC]

all of the pics have been of majestic and beautiful bridges. The ones I remember the most are the ones we crossed in a rented Class C RV in New Zealand. There were long ones, short ones, ones with rock overhangs, rock drop offs, sharp curves, railing on the side or none. But, the one thing in common they all had was they were only 1 lane. Some had real one lane and a lot were barely wider than our 8' 6" wide RV.

It took a little while to figure out which side had to give way to the other and this was tough on the long ones. I only have this 1 picture as we were too scared to take our eyes of the road for the others.

[Andy543]

Originally Posted by LivingInBeauty

We had a choice between crossing the George Washington Bridge or the Tappan Zee Bridge (now called the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge). We chose the Tappan Zee.

The new cable-stayed Tappan Zee bridge is a beauty, at once a marvel of engineering and a work of art.

[gator.bigfoot]

Bridge to PEI. After crossing over.

[LivingInBeauty]

Originally Posted by gator.bigfoot

Bridge to PEI. After crossing over.
Attachment 453407

One day we want to cross that bridge.