Date: 7 August 2001 (Tuesday)

Start:

End: Lakeshore Park CG, St Ignace MI (0 miles)

The temperature was 72f when we got up, and just as humid as the night before.

We ate and started our day’s touring.

We started by going into downtown St Ignace and parking the truck in the Arnold Transit Company, day-visitor lot.

We bought our round-trip tickets to Mackinac Island and waited for a bit. The ferry Ottawa boarded us and the others in line and headed for the island. This boat was a combined passenger/cargo boat with the cargo in an enclosed lower deck and passenger seating under cover but with open sides on the second deck.

On arrival at Mackinac Island, we walked to the head of the pier and across the street. There we bought our tickets for the horse-drawn carriage tour of the island. We had time until our carriage would be ready, so we looked through the Michigan State Parks Visitor’s Center. That gave us some background information for the rest of the day.

We took the tour, which was interesting. The day in the open-sided carriage was very comfortable, with cool breezes and sun. The temperature may have reached 80f.

Since the island is all horse-powered (no cars or trucks), the smell of horse droppings is everywhere. They do their best to get it swept up quickly. The island has 350 horses, mostly powering tour carriages, the others are private, or used for taxis, or in the trucking services.

We had lunch in a small shop, then looked through some other small stores. There were lots of tourists walking the small streets and wandering through the little shops, so we didn’t stay long after that.

We took the boat back, which happened to be the same boat – Ottawa. The Grand Hotel and the marina looked very nice from the boat.

While pulling in to the pier at St Ignace, I took a picture of the piers (now falling down) that served the ferryboats used to connect the upper and lower peninsulas before the building of the Big Mac bridge.

After returning to the campground, we read our books in the lawn chairs with the breeze blowing directly off the lake. It was very comfortable.

Then Judy and Bob from next door came home. They invited us over, so we went to their place and had drinks with them. We told stories and found we’d stayed in the same campground in Montana (Three Forks) they had on a prior trip. We compared state taxing strategies. We chatted about the Edmonton Mall and Mall of America. We chatted about London and driving in England.

In the middle of this, Judy spotted a 1,000-footer bulk freighter in the straight in front of us, following immediately by a classically lined older bulk freighter with self-unloading gear, both east-bound to go under the bridge. It was quite a sight.

Finally, we had to leave. We exchanged addresses for future use.

Bob Hunt has a cousin Bill, retired from the Prince William County Sheriff’s department, and an aunt whose married name is Chandler who lives on Peabody in Manassas. We’ll have to call them if we can find them.

I went to handle the e-mail. We had a note from Susan about the upcoming weekend so we called her to coordinate things.

Now we’re going to do a late light dinner and settle down. Tomorrow is the long drive down to Holland/Saugatuck and all the relatives.