What was your scariest travel experience? @News Blog.

 What was your scariest travel experience?

 

Probably this one when I was a kid.

Related to my mother and sisters many times.

We were on a family vacation. I was five, my older twin sisters were seven. My Dad was driving over a huge bridge called the Mackinac Bridge. The car stalled suddenly and gliding, he parked it as far to the side as he could.

All I could see from the window, I was sitting between my sisters, was a vast expanse of water and the side of the bridge. I started getting anxious and started crying because I thought the bridge was going to fall killing all of us.

My sister Lori put her arm around me and said, “It’s ok RJ, we’re ok, don’t cry.” My other sister Tracy was patting my knee and told me the same thing. It didn’t help. I was getting worse and calling for my Mom and Dad.

My Mom was trying to soothe me from the front seat but decided to get out and go to the back seat. She opened the back door and took me out of the car and held me trying to calm me down. The Worst thing she could have done. We were parked right under one of the towers and I looked up and saw this huge thing towering up to the sky. I can still see it in my head. I saw even more of the vast expanse of water. I totally freaked out. My sisters started crying because I was and they hated seeing their little brother in distress.

 

Mom got me back into the car. Crying, my sisters were trying to calm me down. I thought I could feel the bridge move. Dad came to the back door and told me there’s nothing to worry about, the bridge was safe. A car had stopped and they would give Dad a ride to a phone to call a tow truck.

My mother had traded seats with Tracy and sat in the back with me. She held me with my face toward her chest so I couldn’t see anything and sang songs. Lori patted my arm. Truly one of the worst experiences of my life.

After, I’d have nightmares and my sisters would run into my room and lay with me until I calmed down. Greatest big sisters a guy could have. In my repeating nightmare I would be walking up a hill and reaching the top I would see a vast ocean with a towering bridge stretching across it. I knew I had to cross that bridge but I was paralyzed with fear at the sight and knowing what I had to do. I had this dream many times.

From then on, when we were driving on holidays, Dad or Mom would call out ‘BRIDGE’ and I’d duck down and close my eyes and if my sisters or one of them would be with us, they or she, would pat my back or leg and keep telling me it would be ok and put their hand over my eyes just in case I opened them.

I was terribly frightened of big suspension bridges until I was fourteen.

I turned fourteen and our holiday that year was driving along the west coast to San Francisco. Yep, the Golden Gate Bridge! I was sick of being scared of bridges and told my Dad to drive over that bridge because I wanted to see it. I would conquer my fear.

I saw the towers of the bridge looming up. My seventeen year old sisters kept saying, “RJ, you’ve got this, you can do it.“ Lori put her arm around me and Tracy held my arm smiling at me. I watched as we crossed it. It was just like a big road across the water. As the towers approached, they zipped over me hidden by the roof of the car. Before I knew it we were over.

Dad pulled over and we all got out. My Dad and Mom hugged me. Dad took a photo of us with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. My sisters hugged and kissed me and told me they were so proud of me and loved me so much. I felt like a million dollars that I braved that bridge. I was good from then on.

I can thank my family for helping me but it sure took a long time. Now when my wife and I travel, and I drive across a big bridge, I think of those days and am happy for the love and support I received from my family. Driving over big bridges does not bother me anymore. I realized that bridges always looked big and scary in photos because they showed the whole bridge but actually driving over them they are just like a big road across the water with a few high towers.

But what about being in a boat going under them? That would still be a bit frightening to me.

Some of the above was raked from a posting I had done a few years ago.

Below are photos of the Mackinac Bridge. Five miles across.

Below the tower of the Mackinac Bridge as I saw it at five years old.

Below, some heart pounding photos, for me anyway, of the Golden Gate Bridge. I for one would not want to be painting that thing.

And the video below of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsing in 1940 just kills me.

Thanks for reading the article.

     Thanks to:------

     Mowdud Ahmed Modhu

     @News Blog.