Island Life

 May 23, 2021

First stop: breakfast!

We follow the North Central State Trail from Cheboygan all the way to Mackinaw City

  The temperature is in the 50's and I am wearing multiple layers again.  After yesterday's high of 84 degrees this takes some mental adjustment.  The trail is in excellent condition and although it essentailly follows the roadway, the little strip of white cedar trees along the edge between the trail and the road make the two feel separate.

It is a quick ride into Mackinaw City and we get a hotel room right on the Lake Huron shore.  It is both off-season and a Monday night so the rate is $89/night.  We need to stay close to the ferry so we can go out to the island tomorrow.  Camping and then riding in to the ferry feels like way too much trouble.

May 24, 2021 - Mackinac Island

The Mighty Mackinac Bridge rises 552 feet above the Straits of Mackinac.  Here is where Lakes Huron and Michigan meet.  The cables weigh 11,840 TONS and the total length of wire in the cables is 42,000 miles.  This is a marvel of engineering and construction.  Tom likes bridges so he takes a lot of pictures of this one. Before it was built cars would line up for hours and hours and stretch for miles waiting to board ferries to take them over to the upper peninsula.

Round Island Lighthouse

In 1898 automobiles were banned from the island.  Today all transportation is in the form of horse-drawn carriages and bicycles.  The island is ideal for cycling.  There is an eight mile road circling the perimeter and little roadways and paths meandering all over the inland portions of the island.  We followed carriage paths, single track trails and back roads and saw quite a bit of the island in about six hours.  We still had time for a coffee in town and a short hike up to Arch Rock.  

Saint Anne's Church is a Catholic Church dating back to Marquette's 1671 mission on Mackinac Island.  This structure dates back to 1874.  Its stained glass windows are really beautiful.  steanneschurch.org/history.htm

Arch Rock was formed over thousands of years.  The lake level used to be much higher than it is today.  Water and wind eroded the softer limestone leaving the harder rock which forms the arch.  We walked up a million steps to see this arch and later realized there is a road that leads right to it.  Like we needed more exercise!  Sheesh.

The famous Grand Hotel.  You can get a room here for between $319 - $2415 per night.

Sugar Loaf is another famous natural formation on the island and is really just a big stack of limestone.  But, it does look pretty impressive rising up in the forest.

The Mackinac Island paths are a joy to explore by bike.  The interior part of the island is hilly.  The name of the island means "Great Turtle" so you can imagine the shape of the land.  It is in the low 50's today which explains that down jacket I am wearing under my raincoat.

Trillium and other spring woodland flowers fill the forest.  There is a cool botanical trail with lots of information on the island ecology.  I haven't seen so many pink trillium in years.  Over the centuries many botanists have described the flora.  Henry David Thoreau even spent some time on the island and he used his free time to document what he considered the weeds.  

After rambling all around the island and taking in all the sights we wanted to see we boarded the ferry back to Mackinaw City. 

 I am glad to be sleeping indooors as it is still cold.  The water in Lake Huron is like a big cooler.  I looked up the water temperature and it is 46.2 degrees today.

Tomorrow we want to make it about 50 miles to Petoskey along the shore of Little Traverse Bay.  We will ride along a road called the "tunnel of trees" on our way there.