aw or ac?

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well. I can't believe it's almost been a month since I've written! Whoaaah.

So much to say, so little time.

Let's see, what's been going on. I guess I should finish my Mackinaw recap, huh.

So that following morning we took the ferry to Mackinac Island. If you were wondering, we took the Shepler's ferry. There's pretty much 3 main ferry lines. All are pretty much the same price, but the nice morning lady at the Super 8 hooked us up and let us use her internet terminal to print out a coupon. The night lady wasn't so nice and was mean.

The ferry ride was nice. We sat on the top of the boat, which was all open. It was nice and windy. A little on the cool side, but I thought it was great. Anytime I can get on the water, I love it.

The island was pretty much what I expected. No motorized vehicles, so lots of bikes, walking, and horse drawn carriages. I liked the idea of no motorized vehicles, but didn't like the artifacts of the horses, if you know what I mean.

Stinky!

After a while I didn't notice it as much, but the stink of horse artifacts stayed in the air like a cloud the entire time I was there.

We met up with K's friends and we poked around the island a little bit more. Checked out the cheesy souvenir shops and then we rented bikes to cruise around the island. Of course, we had to do the cheesy tandem bikes, of course :)

So having never ridden a bike in many many many years, we decided to ride more than 8 miles that day. That's one loop around the island. We did the whole circuit in less than 2 hours. We were riding at a comfortable pace. Not hauling ass, but not a lazy ride either.

It's definitely worth a trip back. Now that I have some experience...

That evening we went to a restaurant in St. Ignace - Again i don't remember the name. It's just down the main drag, and there's a train caboose attached to the restaurant that holds the salad bar. Very fun.

I had this crazy dish that was a big bowl full of steamed seafood in really really tasty broth.

That night we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express - St. Ignace Lake Front.

Yes, we were hotel nomads this trip.

I must say, the hotel's facility was probably the nicest one of the 3 hotels. It seemed to be the newest, and it had the best free breakfast buffet. Just don't be fooled by the lake front. I was not impressed. It seemed like a manufactured beach, and I would not have hung out there. The beach was surrounded by random grass patches, and there were seagulls and other birds all over (and of course, their artifacts too).

The view from the room was nice. Just keep your head and eye level above the beach and you're golden.

The next morning, we took a scenic coastline drive down 119 to Harbor Springs. The original intent was to go down as far as Petoskey, but unfortunately, time did not permit. We got to see a ton of nice properties (quite a few which were on sale) and drive down a single lane road which was quite twisty at times.

Plus I got to use the GPS on my laptop!

I know, I k now - nerdy, but I enjoyed tracking where we were, and actually used the map to reroute where we were going.

In Harbor Springs, we ate at this little diner. Again, I don't remember what it was called. But it was really cute and had quite a bit of character in it.

That evening, we poked around Mackinaw City. Checked out the shops, the outdoorsy mall, and then had dinner. We had a very memorable dinner. Pasties at the Mackinaw Pastie & Cookie Co!

Now I remember that :)

Good stuff. We could see why it was so highly recommended and awarded. Pasties good!

Just one quick note - driving across the bridge was quite cool. It seemed like the bridge went on forever. It seems like you're driving over water for a good 15 minutes. And when you look down through the grates, you see the water below.

Good stuff.

So for our last night, we stayed at the Super 8 Bridgeview. This hotel was pretty nice as well. Pretty inexpensive to stay. And our street level room had a beautiful view of a Nissan Armada full size SUV. Quite lovely.

But across the street, there was a park / public beach where you had a gorgeous view of the bridge. We spent some time looking at the bridge (I took some pics of course) and provided free blood to mosquitos.

The following morning, I did my yearly flight of my kite. It was quite nice to be able to get out and fly my kite. It only gets to stretch its wings once a year, so I always try to make it count. The public park across the street was perfect. I spent some time flying my kite, taking pictures, and just enjoying the sound of the water wash up on the shore.

Good stuff.

That's pretty much it. We drove down from up north after that. The drive home was pretty uneventful. I did notice that traffic got more crappy as I got further south, but thats' to be expected.

I know I want to go back up north. I hadn't been that far north since college when I was out there during summer school. It's cooler going there on vacation though :) Next time we go maybe we'll even stay a night on the island. We'll have to see.

I had a great time, but one thing's for sure, there's no place like home...

There's no place like home...

-Kirk