Bridge over Freezing Waters.

There are some things humans do, that at first sight seem very peculiar.

The Mackinac Bridge.

In England we have huge bonfires on November the fifth to celebrate the hanging of the traitor Guy Fawkes who attempted to blow up Parliament a few hundred years ago. The fact that most people don't know the historical details and that most of them would like to attempt the same thing nowadays doesn't stop them from having a firework party.

In Mackinaw, nearly a hundred thousand people turn up each year to join together and "walk the bridge". It's the Mackinac bridge that was built across the straits separating the bulk of Michigan with its Upper Peninsular. Previously ferries carried goods, passengers and train carriages across, but the toll bridge has made all that redundant. My GPS told me that it would take over eighteen hours of driving, via Chicago, to get to the other side if I didn't want to pay the ten dollar toll. It sounded a no brainer to me.

The best view on the beach.

The bridge was constructed by 1957 and was the longest in the world at the time. There was an inauguration where people walked from one side to the other. Fifty five years later, on Labor Day, they are still walking across.

People come from all over just so they can walk across a bridge. We met a guy and his daughter who had driven up from Detroit, stayed overnight an hour and a half's drive away, risen at three thirty in the morning and arrived in time for the five thirty bus that took them to the far side starting line. To walk across a bridge.

The town of Mackinaw was stuffed with tourists. The hotels all had 'Sorry' signs displayed, the food and souvenir shops were doing a roaring trade and every vacant lot was being hired out for parking. All because people wanted to walk over a bridge.

Of course, we knew nothing of this when we arrived. Because we'd been told by some folk at Houghton Lake it was on the Saturday, we thought we'd missed it. We popped into the visitor centre to see what was going on and were told that we could overnight outside - normally forbidden - because it was the bridge walk tomorrow.

So of course we decided that we had to walk over a bridge. We wouldn't miss it for the world.

With our spot for the night organised we went for a walk around Mackinaw. It's like just about every seaside town in the rest of the world, except that the esplanade is one street down from the beach. (That means there's room for houses on the shore.) And this seaside is lakeside, so there's no tang of salt in the air, rusting the railings.



Ice cream, drinks, food and souvenirs are the staple seaside sales, and shop assistants were already worn to a frazzle.

"You can't imagine how many scoops of ice cream I've shovelled today." one said wearily as she scooped two more for us. I think we could.

The walkers start from seven in the morning and stream across until eleven. Seeing the sun come up from the bridge seemed a good idea, so we needed an early start.

We get to ride on an iconic yellow school bus!

We had a short night outside the Visitor Centre, and were up for four thirty. We walked in the dark past a hundred yellow school buses to the assembly point at the pier. There we joined the throngs, paid our five dollars for the ride and were guided onto a bus. It was certainly a slick operation - after all they've had fifty five years of practice.

The eager arrivals were corralled into a holding pen until the countdown to the opening of the bridge - at ten to seven. Why it was ten to seven I still haven't figured out.

There was a surge to the front and we were off - walking over a bridge with eighty thousand other people.






At first we could barely move in the crush, but as people spread out the walking pace picked up and a few minutes later the sun rose above Mackinac Island.

We haven't seen many of these lately.

Car drivers in the two open lanes honked horns and waved, everyone was animatedly chatting to each other with unconscious smiles on their faces. There were disabled people pushing themselves and being pushed, elderly folk determinedly gripping their wheeled walkers and babies fast asleep, nodding rhythmically in their carriers strapped to Dad's back.

What on Earth are we doing here?

 Only then, walking as part of the throng, did we realise what it was all about.

Caution: This walk can be addictive.

What we were doing didn't really matter - we could all be gathering pebbles off the beach or cutting the grass with nail scissors. It was a about people getting together. It was about re-affirming that we can get along. This was all about belonging to each other. This was all about unity. This was why everyone was grinning, waving and tooting horns.

I reckon if everyone walked in step we could bring the bridge down...

So we walked the bridge, and we have our certificates to prove it. But more than that - we'd shared something with eighty thousand others. And that's what felt really special.

Not everyone got caught up in the excitement though.