Mackinaw City, Mackinac Island and Mackinac Bridge

[Davydd]

Though Mackinaw and Macinack are spelled differently they are pronounced the same ending in gnaw.

We went to Midland, Michigan last month via the Upper Peninsula going and coming from Minnesota. On our way we stopped on the UP side of the bridge and camped at Straits State Park right in St. Ignace. Straits SP has two areas and a total of 318 campsites. Many of them have electrical connections and there are flush toilets and showers available. You can walk into town if you desire. Our campsite was right on Lake Huron and a short walk through a tree line separating the campsite from the shore gave us this view of the bridge. That's a man made hoodoo of stacked rocks you see in the foreground.



Last year I reported we stopped at Suzy's Pasties. This year we stopped at Lehto's Pasties on Highway 2 about 8 miles west of the bridge on the UP.





After our Midland stay we returned to Mackinaw City and camped at a private campground called the Tee Pee with 118 sites on a Monday night. It was right on Lake Huron about 1 mile from town, an easy walk. We lucked out and got a site right next to the beach.



You can see the bridge again in the background. They had WiFi available so I sat at the picnic table and fired my laptop up.



There were two other Bs in the campground that night. We met with one couple, Earl and Anne from Ohio. They had this 2007 Pleasure-Way Excel and you can see an older Airstream B across the way.



The first evening we walked into town and ate at the Dixie Saloon.



Most appropriately I had the fried perch sandwich.


The next morning we broke camp and caught the first ferry out to Mackinac Island. There are three ferry companies that pretty much run on the same schedule and prices seemed similar. We chose Shepler's mainly because it seemed easy to park the B in their lot.

This is a typical Shepler's ferry.


Mackinac Island does not allow motorized vehicles. The island has one medical doctor, 5 veterinarians, 500 year round residents, 3,000 summer residents and 500 horses. You get around via bicycle, walking or horse drawn carriage. All commercial deliveries are by horse carriage. There are horse cabs and there are horse carriage tours of the island.

After walking around for a while and having a buffet breakfast at the Chippewa Hotel (recommended) we took the horse carriage tour. We started out from the main street on a two horse carriage that took us up to the stables to board a larger three horse carriage. The horses names BTW were Captain, Jack and Farrow. They always work as a team.



Fudge is the big seller on the island. There may be more fudge shops on Mackinac Island than people. Just kidding but I bet there had to be more than a dozen fudge shops.



Here is a view of the main street.


This is the Grand Hotel. We did not go in because they charged tourists admission just to walk around it.


The big event that week was the annual Chicago to Mackinac Island yacht race and the town was teeming with yacht crews and the docks were full.



We left about on the 1:30 PM ferry and headed across the UP to Lake Gogebic State Park, stayed the night there and then headed home.

[markopolo]

Looks like it was a fun trip - camp - tour - try local food - visit city - that's the kind of trips we like now.

Thanks for posting the info. I know next to nothing about that part of the country so it's very interesting to me.

[g1g]

That is on my list of places to go. Nice to see some reviews there. I know Traverse City is nice and plan on that on the same trip.

[renrut]

The area is very nice. I use to travel from Manitoba to Southern Ontario twice a year and went over the bridge every time. It is quite an experience. It does get interesting when the wind gets up though. There are nice campgrounds in the area and quite a bit to do.

Thanks for posting this Davy. It brings back some nice memories for me.

[Davydd]

After we departed Mackinaw City for Midland we took a route through Traverse City and stopped and bought cherries in season. If you go from the Bridge to Traverse City there is a Tunnel of Trees route from Cross Village to Harbor Springs on Highway 119 along the Lake Michigan shoreline that I would strongly recommend. The name of the route describes itself.