Red River of the North

My childhood hometown is located on the banks of the "Mighty Red River".

My dh, the kids and I walked across the vertical lift bridge at the far end of the river walkway. In all the years I lived in this little town - I don't remember ever having walked across the bridge. The kids thought it was pretty exciting especially since there was the added element of "danger", should the bridge lift while we were part way across. Actually I don't know if the vertical lift is still in operation or not...but the kids thought it was cool nonetheless.

I do remember us driving across it once - I'm sure there was more than one time, but I remember a specific time. My dad and us three older girls had driven across the bridge to get to some quarry (?) to dig for sand for our little backyard sandbox. I was less than 8 yrs old at the time (since the sandbox was at our old house and we moved when I was 8). We had one or two of those large galvanized metal square tubs to fill with sand. After we got the tubs filled we headed home over the bridge. But we never made it all the way across before our car stalled.

It would have been much more exciting if we had stalled right at the vertical lift position, with a large ship in the distance - but if I remember correctly we were almost at the end of the bridge when it happened.

From Wikipedia: "The Red is a North American river. Formed by the confluence of the Bois de Sioux and Otter Tail rivers in the United States, it flows northward through the Red River Valley and forms the border between the U.S. states of Minnesota and North Dakota before continuing into Manitoba, Canada. At its mouth the river flows into Lake Winnipeg. The Red River flows through several major urban areas along its path including Fargo-Moorhead and Greater Grand Forks in the United States and Winnipeg in Canada. The Red is about 550 miles long. The US portion is 395 miles long and the Canadian portion is 155 miles."