Mackinaw Island and St. Ignace, MI

                             We crossed the Mackinaw Bridge and settled in at St. Ignace, MI.

This is a pretty little town.  It  is off season right now and some of the businesses have closed but most are open until the end of October.

The pictures above were just taken around town.  I was surprised and how crystal clear the water is in Lake Michigan.

 Today we went to Mackinaw Island.  We road the Sheplers Lines.  We took a spin under the Mackinaw Bridge before heading to the Island.

On one side of the bridge is Lake Michigan and the other side is Lake Huron.  Neat huh.

                                Shops, shops and more shops.  I have never seen so many fudge shops.

We took the carriage ride around the island.  It took over an hour and was very informative.

 Our driver/guide was John and he did a wonderful job.  He was very funny and his stories entertaining.

                                                                 This is Arch rock.

                              Can you make out the boat in the center.  That water was so clear.

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There were several beautiful churches on the island.  This was a Missionary Bark Chapel.  Don't know what that implies.  LOL

 Then of course there was the beautiful Grand Hotel.  This hotel was in the movie Somewhere in Time.  Great movie if you haven't seen it.

 You just can't get far enough away to get all of this huge hotel in the picture.

The grounds were beautiful.  Of course our guide said all the beautiful flowers on the island were because of all the manure from the horses.  They have a huge compost pile on the island they use for all landscaping.  He said they got 5,000 lbs of manure a day.  That's an awful lot of manure!

The day went by pretty fast.  Can't miss the last boat of the day.  It's a long swim.

                                      Just a big ship heading out to open water.

It was a fun day.
Later