We stacked about half of the wood yesterday and then decided to go out on the St. Croix in Jon's fishing boat in the afternoon. It is almost time to put the boat in mothballs and is good to use up the old gas. We launched at the public launch just north of Stillwater and went as far as allowed--the Arcola High Bridge. Because there are zebra mussels in the lower St. Croix, you are restricted from going father north. You can go further north if you launch there, but not risk spreading these noxious creatures with your boat.
We walked on this high bridge in the sixties before we were married. In the Viet Nam war they closed it to pedestrians because of danger of sabotage. They actually posted a guard just like they had done in WW2 according to my aunt. Jon had a crazy friend who flew his airplane under the bridge while Jon filmed with his camera. I'll bet an authority somewhere wouldn't have liked to see that, but we have it documented in old home movies. In all the years we have been out on the river, I have never seen a train cross the bridge when we were down below. The train slowed down to cross.
I googled to find out the stats on the bridge because it looks so old. We are worried about all of our bridges in Minnesota since the Mpls. bridge collapse in August.
My mom said they used to hike from Somerset out to the high bridge when she was young. My aunt said when she was in high school kids would go out there to park. I think she was one of them.
Link to bridge hx: http://www.visi.com/~jweeks/bridges/pages/rs03.html
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