Sunrise , as seen from the cheap ( $50 ) hotel room
Island , as seen from the ferry
Flowers everywhere on the Island
Fort Mackinac
A street in the down town
Just when we were giving up on the weather in mid west, we woke up to a beautiful sun rise. Our cheap hotel is right on the beach of lake Huron. The lake has waves just like ocean and is just as choppy as the Pacific. If you do not know that it is a lake, it looks and feels like an ocean.
A very short ferry ride, brought us to Mackinac Island. It is completely oppposite to my expectation of a tourist trap. It is gorgeous and people are very friendly. We have so many pictures that I am having tough time selecting four for the blog so I decided to do a two part blog.
Little bit of history: The native americans called it a "turtle island", it is shaped like one. The british sailor John Nicolet was the first white man to see this island in 1700's. British made the fort Mackinac in 1780's. The island and the city were major fur trading posts and in the peak fur trading time they did as much as 3 million dollars trade in a season.
Today, it is a tourist place but people live on it year around also. The 80% of the island is a state park while 20% land on the island is in private hands. There are no cars or any motorized vehicles allowed, so all you have is bikes and horse drawn carriages. The workers as well as tourists all follow the rule. It is amazing, how quite it is when there are no cars around. Middle of the island is forested with all sorts of trees and we did a three mile hike into it. You can hear the trees squeaking with winds and the sounds of the birds are lot louder ( at least it seemed like) and sky lot more blue.
The fort was closed and so were lots of other tourist sights. It is just as well , we had so much fun without the regular tourist traps. In fact, I recommend coming here during the shoulder season so that yo ucan really enjoy the beauty without hoards of people.
There are flower bulbs everywhere. Tulips as well as other bulbs.
More to come on second part, stay tuned. Find out what the main attraction of the island.....
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