Our hotel room in St. Ignace (north side of the straits) had a cool view of the Mackinac Bridge...
The kids were surprised to learn that MN doesn't have a monopoly on the Paul Bunyan/Blue Ox myth. Michigan's Blue Ox sticks his tongue out:
We took advantage of the option to ride a ferry that goes under Mackinac Bridge. So before we ever drove over the bridge, we got some cool views from around and underneath it...
Mackinac Island was very pretty, despite the odor of horse poo. Cars are not allowed, ergo buggies, bikes, and walking are your transportation options. It was in the upper 80's - toasty but not horrific, though Zach protested the relatively modest amount of walking we did by slapping his feet on the pavement in a grumpy manner.
Think this was called Arch Rock. The only problem with this vacation was the crowds of people trying to squeeze into small areas for photo ops. I had to snap this and run away to avoid the stampede.
There were carriage companies that gave tours around the island, but we opted for a drive-your-own carriage.
We were lined up with Babe the Percheron and given driving instructions and an exact route to follow. Babe knew the route already anyway and insisted on a terribly leisure pace.
And so, we paid 108 bucks to look at a horse's butt for an hour. I don't have much experience with horses. This one always whinnied loudly before passing gas. I had never logically considered it before, but I suppose if you combine such a corpulent animal with a diet of oats and grass or whatever, you have flatulence galore. There go my romantic notions of the horse and buggy era.
We spent about 6 or 7 hours on the island, and that was enough. We forgot to buy some of the island's famous fudge while out there, but St. Ignace had a shop that sold Murdick's Fudge. Fudge ain't really my thing but the kids liked it...
The next day, we finally crossed the bridge we'd been staring at for a day and a half.
We made our way another 2.5 hours southwest to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, about 20 miles west of Traverse City. It has cool views of Lake Michigan and tall sandy dunes you can run on.
Below: hard to tell, but the sandy hills would plateau and go up again - this was on the top of three tiers:
3, 2, 1, go!
The final leg of our journey took us back up to the UP and briefly to Sault Ste. Marie to check out the Locks.
Things move at a snail's pace in the Lock and Dam, and I was bummed that the terrain is flat, making it harder to see the (slow) action. This freighter, the Lee A. Tregurtha, eventually crawled out into Lake Superior...
We could have hung around longer but drove another hour or so up to Whitefish Point to see the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.
The bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald is inside this building. The ship sunk 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point.
We toured some of the lighthouse keeper's buildings and read some spooky tales of shipwrecks, and then went to the shore to take a pic. Lo and behold, the Lee A. Tregurtha was chugging by, which we had seen leave the Soo Locks over an hour before and several miles away:
The next morning we made our last touristy stop at Tahquamenon State Park to see the waterfalls.
Huh? What waterfalls. Who cares.
We finished up with a hotel stay near Wausau, Wisconsin that had some fun indoor water slides.
Whew, that was a long post. Anyhoo, we're glad to be back home. Nothing like sleeping in your own bed. And not driving several hours a day. But, we made some fun memories.
