We Do Mackinaw City and Mackinac Island

Forty-Mile light

Poe Reef light

Fourteen Ft Shoal light

We left Rogers City and made our way to Mackinaw City. We had a good day for traveling, but the wind picked up about one-half hour before we arrived at the marina. We had difficulty getting the boat into her slip as the wind was blowing us all over the place and the slip width was only a couple of feet greater than our beam. After a second attempt and with the help of two dockhands we finally eased her into her berth. Our plan was to stay here 2-3 days so we could do some boat chores, visit Mackinac Island, and just relax.

Mackinac Island light

Downtown Mackinac Island

Riding around the island

The grandchildren shrine

The Grand Hotel

Arriving at the Grand Hotel

The extended weather forecast wasn't promising, so with a good weather window, we decided to head over to Mackinac Island the next day. We boarded a ferry located right next to the marina and took a short ride over to the island. Since no motorized vehicles are allowed on the island, we took our bikes so it would be easier to get around. There is an eight-mile bike path around the island and we decided to ride this route as our first activity. The route is really level and runs along the shoreline. The only distraction was that there was a lot of other bike riders and horse-drawn carriages.  Along the way we stopped and built a little rock shrine for our grandkids. The bottom rock was for Brennan, the next one up for Madison, and then Hannah's rock, the third from the bottom. Finally we found a nice round rock that had Sadie written all over it. This shrine overlooks the straits and the Mackinac suspension bridge. We don't know how long it will last there, but we'll often think about it when we get home and with the grandkids again. We made it around the island and then parked our bikes and took a carriage ride up to the Grand Hotel. High on Jane's list was to visit the hotel and have lunch there.

Lunch at the Grand

The Grand's front porch

The gardens at the Grand

We enjoyed a lunch in the hotel's traditional grand style. The hotel was the site for the filming of the movie Somewhere in Time and Jane enjoyed wandering the halls a seeing all of the film's and hotel's memorabilia. We sat on the hotel's grand front porch, supposedly the longest in the world, and wrote a bunch of postcards. Then we wandered along the hotel's famous gardens before heading back to find our bicycles. We wandered through a number of the island's little shops souvenir shopping and then loaded our bikes onto the ferry and headed back to the mainland. We invited a sole looper to the boat for happy hour, then cleaned up, had dinner on the boat and turned in for the evening.

The weather forecast for the next day wasn't very promising so we extended our stay for another day. Around mid-morning it started to rain. In between showers Jane headed out to do some shopping at the mainland stores. Capt. Larry had some engine room chores to do and after lunch we sat on the back of the boat and enjoyed docktails. Hopefully, the weather will pass and we will be able to head over to Beaver Island for a couple of days.