Mackinac Island was for sure one of the highlights of my current 6 month adventure. After getting up early I opened my closet and got some fresh clothes to start the morning. Once I was up I met up with my family, all of whom were already up and sitting in the living room of our camper. I was very excited to go to Mackinac Island but I didn’t fully know what it was like there- no cars at all. I walked over to the cupboard and pulled out cereal and milk from the fridge and in only a half hour later everyone was ready to go. We walked outside and put in the password for the bike lock and pulled it from the bikes. We rode our bikes a short ways through the insanely large campground to the entrance. where we parked our bikes on the dirt. Only two of our bikes had kickstands so we leaned the others against a tree or a large rock. It took a while until the first bus got there bus got to our station but it was full and only two people could get on. Another 15 or 20 minutes went by before the next one came, and it was empty. We were the closest ones to the bus so we pushed our bikes towards the back trailer where the driver stood to put them onto the platform.

We were the first to get on the bus. When everyone got there bikes onto the platform and got seated (or stood wherever there was room) then the bus took off on its leisurely stroll of only about 30 MPH until it got to its seashore destination 20 or so miles away. We were the first seated so we were the last to get out, same with our bikes. My bike (the shiny gray one) was the very last one to be taken from its open compartment. After that we walked our bikes to the line that held somewhere close to 500 PEOPLE! luckily each of the giant boats held 200 or so people each. When the line finally narrowed down we put our bikes in and walked up 3 flights of stairs to get to the top. There were only 4 seats left, and exactly four seats left, and they were all next to each other so we all got lucky. On the 30 minute ride through not only Lake Michigan but also Lake Huron to get there. The water was constantly changing colors from greenish to bluish. When we finally got there we saw through the Hawaii-clear water that there used to be a dock were we were standing- Planks and poles made of wood were lying on the bottom! It was cool watching them slightly sway with the sand on the floor of the somewhat deep water that our boat was on until it was our turn to get off. We walked down the stairs with the crowd of people, all 3 stories, and then met up by the bikes on the gently-swaying dock we stood on. Once we had our bikes we explored. Not a single car. It was amazing and it was VERY hard to explain which why I chose the thumbnail (picture) that I did for today’s post. The basic version? It was amazing everywhere. All of the mail was picked up by horses and shipped off by boat. The island was modern day and it wasn’t a recreation, but it was the EXACT same as it would have been some time in the very early 1900’s.

The first thing we did was obviously bike around. We looked at the town, passed all the million dollar homes that were on the right (each one with their own beach) and to the 2-mile long bike path that went past all of the clear water that let the rocks be seen fully. After a while of biking past the trees and piles of stacked rock creations we finally hit a large stairway that we would need to climb up to in order to see some sort of island landmark. One of the signs pointed up and read GRAND ARCHWAY.

On the way up the very steep stairs my shoes started to start slipping; my shoe laces no longer stayed together. After all this I would NEED some new shoes. At the time it wasn’t really that bad, however it was annoying. Every couple of seconds my shoes bugged me so much I took them off and retied them. When we were finally at the top we saw some horses going down another road and the bridge over the arch on the left.

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#Mackinac Island     #Island     #Horses     #Biking

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