Month: August 2024

Thursday, August 8, 2024

Tuesday, after crossing the Mackinac Bridge, we stopped at the St. Ignace Welcome Center.  This may be strike three for us but again the Welcome Center was closed – on a Tuesday.  Sign said closed Tuesday and Wednesday.  How is one supposed to know these things?  There were a few brochures outside that helped.  However, without any help, we found the Wild Blueberry Breakfast and Bakery.  We did have to turn around because we didn’t see it quickly enough.  Yes, it was very good.

Next stop was the Wawatam Lighthouse in St. Ignace.  This is where we ate our first pastry.  We also met a little four-year-old girl who didn’t have a shy bone in her body, and was spending the week with her grandparents.  She introduced us to them.  Thought we were going to spend the day at the lighthouse listening to her talk.

Just a few miles later we stopped at Castle Rock.  We had been told it was sort of a “road side attraction”.  It costs $1 to climb to the top of Castle Rock (171 steps) and from there, you could see for many miles on this beautiful day.  It was also a big souvenir shop and no we didn’t buy anything but our ticket to climb the rock.  The people were very nice and friendly.  We decided we really liked the little town of St. Ignace.

The real purpose of this little side trip was to get to the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.  This has been a long-term bucket list item.  A lot of you probably don’t know that we owned a boat at one time and considered buying a larger boat and doing the Great Loop instead of buying an RV.  That’s when we learned a lot about the locks and dams and became interested in the Soo Locks.  The Soo Locks raise and lower boats between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes and complete more than 7,000 vessel passages every year moving over 75 million tons of cargo.  Vessels locking through vary in size from small private boats to 1,000 foot long ships carrying up to 77,000 tons of freight in a single load.  Currently there are only two locks operational because two others were torn out and they are building one larger lock.  There is a large viewing platform where you can watch the huge ships and small boats like we owned, lock through.  Interesting to us was that the huge ships lock through basically the same as we do in a little boat.  Anyway – it was a fun afternoon for us.

From the Soo Locks, we drove to the Rotary Island Park in Sault Ste. Marie to just have a little rest and eat dinner before we headed to Walmart for groceries and a good night’s sleep. It was another very nice day – and it’s finally cool enough for jackets.

Monday, August 5, 2024

After our morning sunrise Sunday, we said goodbye to Rogers City and continued our trek to the north.  Max found us a local restaurant “The Chuckwagon” along our route up the coastline.  We had a great country breakfast with some locals.  This was one of those places where everyone in the restaurant knew everyone except us, and there was constant banter between all the tables.  We checked with our server to be sure we hadn’t sat at someone else’s table, but she assured us that we were fine. We enjoyed a great breakfast of eggs, hash browns, buttermilk biscuits and gravy and bacon cooked just right.  If you ever happen to be on Highway 23 between Rogers City and Mackinac City, you should definitely stop for a meal.

Continuing on highway 23, we stopped at a roadside pull-off and sat enjoying a nice view of the shore of Lake Huron while we streamed our Lester Memorial worship service.

We arrived in Mackinac City before check in time at the RV park, so we went to the visitor’s center which was unfortunately closed.  There were some brochures available outside that were helpful.  Then we got our first view of the Mackinac Bridge.  There is a nice park where you can view the bridge and the lighthouse, so we spent some time there and then wondered around town a little.  After lunch we registered at the Mackinac Mill Creek Camping for a two-night stay.  All our Switch Crew friends will remember this as the location of the huddle last year which we were not able to attend.  We spent the rest of Sunday walking around the park, playing miniature golf and visiting with other RVers.  During the night we had several episodes of rain.  There was none in the forecast and new the forecast for Monday was supposed to be good for a trip to Mackinac Island but…there was some lost sleep. This is the third time we have tried to make a trip to Mackinac Island. We had to cancel the other two, and we were so close we definitely didn’t want it to be a rainy day.

Monday morning we were at the shuttle pick up at 8:30, on the ferry at 9.00, and had a beautiful day on the island.  Sunshine.  Light breeze.  We rode bikes around the entire island and had a perfect day.  We had lunch at the Great Turtle restaurant and our brisket sandwich was great.  We visited all the beautiful spots like the Grand Hotel, the view across the lake to the bridge, many of the gift shops and most of the chocolate shops. Of course we came home with some wonderful Mackinac fudge.

We completed our Mackinac adventure today (Tuesday) when we finally drove across the Mighty Mac (Mackinac Bridge).  It was another beautiful morning with light traffic.  There was some repair work in two spots, but it was an easy drive. One more item on the bucket list checked.  We feel so blessed.

Sunday, August 4, 2024

Friday afternoon after our beautiful drive across the state of Michigan, we arrived at our Boondockers Welcome site for the next two nights in Rogers City, Michigan.   We parked in our host’s driveway which was across the street from the shore of Lake Huron.  A great place to spend two days even if all we did was sit and look at the water.  However, our host, Katy, described her hometown “as a little jewel on the lake with friendly people and a great small town feel. You can walk and or bike from one end of town to the other and there is a great bike path that leads all the way to the lighthouse north of town.”  A very good description of this small town.  Katy also told us the town was in the midst of their Nautical City Festival.  There were lots of events happening throughout the community.

Friday afternoon we walked to the marina and adjacent park where there were many craft booths, rides for kids, and food fenders.  Saturday there were soft ball games, a pancake breakfast, more food vendors, a classic car show, music, and a great strawberry short cake ice cream social. At various businesses around town there were wonderful murals painted on the walls.

We were at the beach both mornings at sunrise to welcome the day so, the visit was not as quiet and restful as we had expected, but it was a good time.  Another serendipitous encounter.

Saturday, August 3, 2024

Thursday we left the Platte campground headed to some more lighthouses.  First stop was in Empire to see the Robert H. Manning Memorial lighthouse.  It is in a small city park on the western shore of Michigan.  Robert H. Manning was a life-long resident of Empire who spent as much time as possible indulging his passion for fishing on Lake Michigan and longed to see a lighthouse built at Empire for returning fishermen. After his death in 1989, Manning’s family and friends raised money to build this tiny lighthouse on the beach. It’s not an official nautical lighthouse, and no tours are available, but people love to have their pictures taken with it.

The rest of our drive up the narrow Leelanau peninsula was beautiful.  There were ripe cherries being picked from the many fields of cherry trees, as well as several festivals in the tiny towns.  At the tip of the peninsula is the Grand Traverse Lighthouse established in 1852 in what is now the Leelanau State Park.  We got to use our annual state park pass again.  This lighthouse has been restored and is open to the public.  We were able to tour the restored keepers dwelling that is filled with artifacts and climb the lighthouse tower (very cramped climb) for a great payoff view of Lake Michigan.  The lighthouse serviced the mariners on Lake Michigan until 1972 when the automatic light tower was erected.  The lighthouse and museum were opened in 1986.  This was one of the better lighthouse restorations we have seen.

Friday morning we began our trek across the state over to the east coast of Michigan.  It took all of about 4 hours including several stops for some sites and one for groceries.  It was another beautiful drive filled with cherry and apple trees, sunflowers, lakes, mushroom houses, another lighthouse and a gigantic pie pan.