Mackinac Bridge, Mackinac Island, Fish, & Funny (Michigan)

Travel Day to St Ignace, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. It was fun to cross over the Mackinac Bridge. This is a 5 mile toll bridge over Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. It is the only road to the Upper Peninsula from the rest of Michigan. It took about 25 minutes to get across because of stopped traffic; then you paid the toll at the end. It was $8.00 for our truck and HOWE (footnote 1).

Find A Grave (footnote 2) – we went to Lakeside Cemetery, here in St Ignace. It is right along Lake Huron and you can see Mackinac Bridge. The view from the cemetery is very pretty. We were there a good chunk of time and I got a lot done.

A few of Kevin’s photos from the beach at the cemetery. He took his camp chair and walked down to the beach and watched the boats, Mackinac Bridge, all sorts of ships, and played on his iPhone. He enjoyed his time there.

Afterwards we stopped at a gas station for drinks (Diet Coke). As we were leaving, the cashier lady said that Kevin and I were smiling like we are newlyweds. Sweet! I love that! 

We went a short ways to Massey Fish Company. The space to buy stuff is tiny, fits about 3 people. The gal gave us a sample of smoked lake trout and it was fabulous! Neither Kevin nor I would have guessed it to be trout. Trout is famous out of this Lake Huron. We got a pound of that plus a pound of smoked salmon. She said I could take a picture; they were processing the fish they caught this morning. For dinner I made lake trout fish sandwiches. It was very tasty. 

On Saturday, it poured rain. I mean, poured all morning! Rivers of water flowing down the dirt roads at this campground. I felt so bad for the group that is tenting across from us. Later the lady said only one tent leaked. That is good. Their piles of stuff were soaked but they stuck it out. We just relaxed and read our books. The rain finally stopped around noon. Kevin called Shepler’s for the free shuttle ride from the campground office to the ticket booth for the ferry to Mackinac Island.  Parking is $15.00 so riding this shuttle saves money. We were told by the office to call Shepler’s about 10 minutes before we wanted to leave. That was how quick it came to pick us up. We got our tickets and then got in line. Thankfully the place to wait has a cover because it started to rain some more. But it didn’t last long.

The ferry was very fun. We sat in the very front. It was fun to watch the crew with the ropes. The captain took us under and around the Mackinac Bridge. That was a delight, as most ferries don’t do that

Got to Mackinac Island and it reminded us of excursions from our cruise ships with lots of touristy shops. This island is about 8 miles to go around and no vehicles are allowed, except for emergency vehicles. The smell was very strong from all the horses. We looked around and wondered what to do. Kevin had the great thought, “We love history; let’s go to the Fort.” Fort Mackinac tickets are $17.00 a person and we felt well worth it. When we were line for the ferry, Kevin told me he thought there was going to be a wedding. One old lady had curlers in her head and a bunch of people were dressed up. As we walked up to the fort, we saw a church being decorated for a wedding.

Fort Mackinac. The buildings are original and the signs were very informative. Some of the buildings are the oldest in Michigan. Throughout the day they would have different demonstrations of guns, uniforms, etc. The fort was built in 1780 during the American Revolution. It was a British fort. The commander said this high limestone bluff would protect them from an attack by the Americans. The British had the fort during the War of 1812. After the war the British gave the fort to the U.S. It was an active fort until 1895. 

We stopped in at the American Fur Company Store. Well, it was definitely not what I thought it was! The sign outside says, “On June 6, 1822, Alexis St. Martin (1804-1880), a French Canadian voyageur, was accidentally shot in the American Fun Company Store located on this site. Dr William Beaumont (1786-1853) the Fort Mackinac post surgeon, nursed St. Martin back to health. St. Martin’s wound healed leaving a permanent opening into his stomach. Through this opening Beaumont compared the digestibility of foods, recorded the temperature of the stomach under different conditions, and extract and analyzed gastric juice. Beaumont conducted the first of 250 experiments with St. Martin in 1825 in the Officers’ Stone Quarters at Fort Mackinac. Eight years later he published a groundbreaking book on his discovery of the digestive process.” Wow oh wow!!! 

Continuing our walk, we walked over to the Grand Hotel and along different paths seeing the bridge, two lighthouses, several pleasure boats on the water and even a cargo ship.

As we headed back to the ferry we stopped at the restroom. I saw, and Kevin said he saw in the men’s, a sign typed and taped up sign saying, “Please do not put foot on wall.” What? Who puts their feet on the wall? Must be a lot of people doing it since they had to put up a sign. Hum…. Weird. Even with the rain delay, we were able to do all we wanted to do and see on the island and we had a grand time doing it together.

*The blog posts are taken from my daily travel journal. Would you believe – it takes me a 1/2 day every week to whittle down a week’s worth of journal so it won’t be too long for the post each week. HAHA Thank you for reading!

1. “HOWE” is what we named our Alliance Avenue 36-ft 5th wheel. See: Home On WhEels and we pronounce it Howie. We live and travel in it full-time around the country.

2. Find A Grave – https://www.findagrave.com/about