When Bridges and Hearts Collide .....

One of my girlfriends and I headed south on I-55 on Friday and didn't look back. We traveled through Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana in about 10 hours.

I imagined Louisiana to be the swamp capitol of the world, but much to my surprise that wasn't the case at all. Don't get me wrong.. there was swamp, but we didn't make it far enough into the southern edges of the state to experience that. 

Our first task at hand.... Find a Starbucks with the "You are Here" mugs. While searching for the closest Starbucks store, we stumbled upon a bit of courage, and decided that we would throw caution to the wind and drive over Lake Pontchartrain. 

Just a few quick facts about Lake Pontchartrain:

• The 23-Mile Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana is the longest continuous over water bridge in the world.
• The causeway is the worlds lowest bridge, at only 15 feet above the water.
• Some pockets of holes in the lake are over 80 feet deep.
• Each year over 8 Million vehicles travel over the causeway.
• Daily vehicle count over the causeway is now above 40,000.
• The causeway was built in 14 months and completed in 19 months.
• The bridges have been struck by marine vessels only 16 times since it's opening on August 30, 1956.
• Total cost for land acquisition and building of the causeway and twin bridges was $81 Million Dollars.

Pretty impressive right? 

I have always been absolutely terrified of bridges. My mother told me the story of my great-grandmother's car being the last one off of a bridge in Ohio before it collapsed. My great-grandmother was alright, and there were not any other cars passing over that bridge at the time of collapse. After the details in that story ... I have always been afraid of bridges. 

I'm not sure what i was expecting when we decided to drive over that bridge, but what was about the happen was not what I had anticipated. We paid the toll of $3.00 and drove onto the northern portion of the North Shore bridge access. Water, water, and more water is what I saw. Land was no longer visible after about 3 miles and not again until about 5 miles from the Southern Shore where the skyline of the New Orleans Business District was the size of something found in a snow globe.

My first instinct was to panic once I could no longer see land. God is bigger than my fear was the chant of my heart for the first few miles. The car felt like a roller coaster because of the waves that I felt due to the tires being in contact with the part of road where the support columns held the bridge in it's place beneath the surface. 

After about 5 minutes on the bridge, I decided to really look out and see where I was. I was in the middle of the lake... no land anywhere in sight, no way of getting off the bridge, nothing to save me from my worst fear. 

I took several deep calming breaths, grabbed my iphone and started taking pictures. My heart rate slowed down, the feeling of nausea no longer, tears were gone from my eyes, and I was falling in love with my surroundings. I was actually enjoying myself! Wow....

I rolled down my window, turned the music off, and listened to the sound of the tires as they rolled over the concrete bridge "clip, clop, clip, clop, clip, clop". I closed my eyes, and inhaled the faint aroma of salt mixed with the invigorating warm gulf coast air. The sky was engulfed by greyish-white clouds, the dirty brown water was choppy due to being beaten by a brisk wind and I couldn't take my eyes off of the body of water directly in my gaze. 

My fear was no longer the focus of my mind, and in it's place was found the longing for this particular journey to not end anytime soon. 25 Minutes was all the time it took to cross from one side of Lake Pontchartrain to the other, and inside of that time I learned a thing or two about myself.  I learned that I really ought to stop fearing things that sound scary based on points of view that aren't my own. I also realized that my fear of being out of control, has hindered me very severely throughout my life and that it's time for me to change that way of thinking.

As the weekend ended and we began the lengthy drive home on Sunday, my friend and I made one last drive over that beautiful body of water, this time not being fearful of the unknown, and enjoying the 25 last minutes we had in the company of such a magnificent adventure in New Orleans!