St. Ignace Michigan to Frankenmuth Michigan, The End of THE Trip, THE Encore'

Copyright 2018, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

AUGUST 17, 2013

Five years to the day, I am presenting the last post of the THE Trip, THE Encore'.  We will have one more day on the road, a 100 mile drive from Frankenmuth to our stick built home in SE Michigan.  This however, was our last "vaca" day, as it was not all about driving, we managed to add a bit of "being a tourist in our own state" into the day/evening.  Yes, it took me 5 years to finish these tour reports. Seems life keeps happening and interfering with my blogging time.  LOL . That's my story and I am sticking to it!  Snicker.

So, we are going to drive from St. Ignace, over the Mackinaw Bridge and south to Frankenmuth where we will stay for the night before the last trudge home.  This day is a 210 mile day.  That will get us to about 100 miles from home.

Here is my trusty iPad, I love knowing where I am supposed to be and where I think I am and where the GPS thinks I am. I use several different mapping apps, one for campgrounds, another for truck friendly situations, several for services available along our routes.  And, yes, I have been known to have them all open at the same time. This shows us as we approach the Big Mac Bridge - - 

This was taken just seconds later, shows the view out the front windshield.

More views as we cross the Big Mac:

There is one of the jet ferries with it's rooster tail:

This is Fort Michilimackinac, a fort and trading post.  You can take tours and we highly recommend them for friends that are history buffs.

No drive through Michigan's farm land would be complete without a few farm photos:

We arrived in Frankenmuth, unhooked and drove to town for a "evening" visit and some "famous" chicken dinner. Here are a few photos taken in early evening:

Chickens everywhere:

The last photo of the trip, flowers, fountain and a bit of the moon up there - - 

Thanks for coming along.  Here is a map, drawn backwards (if you follow the numbers, we started at 65 and ended up at 1!  LOL) . More maps can be found in three pages at the top of this blog.

There is a retrospective of the trip, written in September 2013 here.  I posted 288 posts to cover this trip, and that is IF I managed to label each and every one and did not muss that labeling stuff up.  Oh, ya, I am pretty sure I missed a label or two.   LOL

.

A Stroll Around St. Ignace, Michigan

Copyright 2018, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

AUGUST 2013

We spent the day slowly sightseeing around St. Ignace.  We had never spent a day just lazying around the town, we found it to be quite delightful.  First stop was the Father Marquette National Park where we enjoyed a lovely walk and the grounds, and of course, reviewing our knowledge, or lack thereof, of Father Marquette.

One of the best parts of the park is the walk down to view the Big Mac bridge.

Zoom:

Back in town proper we parked Jolly and walked around town, there were some pretty flowers:

We walked along the shoreline, people watching and boat watching, the following day we would take one of these over to Mackinaw Island.  These are smaller versions of the ferries we usually ride from the Mackinaw City side of the bridge. When the "jet boats" get moving fast they show off with great rooster tails of water.  I believe it is all a show fun thing, those rooster tails, they do make for a great photo tho.  LOL . For the record, unless it is horribly hot, I prefer to sit inside, not on top, it is "breezy" up there, which translates to cool, besides that keeps my hat on my head as well. 

Then, I looked up, neat eh?  No, I have no idea why. 

And, yes, there was a lighthouse here too, sorta like prairie dog photos, one simply cannot take too many.  (Yes, Sony and the zoom at work here.)

As I said, the following day we would visit Mackinaw Island, a sure fire favorite of ours. Even though we have been any number of times, I still managed to take over 200 photos.  Yes, it really is that lovely.



.

Ishpeming Michigan to St. Ignace Michigan

Copyright 2018, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

AUGUST 2013

Another day of travel, approximately 180 miles.

Those who have traveled in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan may remember that there are a few "speciality" foods we enjoy.  

So, what are pasties?  THESE, yummy delights, no they are not that other thing (if you web search you will know what I am referring to!  LOL).  The miners in the UP carried these into the mines for a hearty and easy to eat meal.  These can be topped with gravy, or other condiments such as ketchup, purists however will frown on topping them with anything.  The really good ones have rutabagas and potatoes in them (my opinion.)  

You know me, I snap photos of things I find interesting while Man drives. Such as:

We have some lovely waterfalls, this one is along the roadside.  We have hiked to others, all different, all delightful:

Man is particularly fond of, smoked foods, and yes, fish will easily do.

We are driving US 2 along Lake Michigan for many miles.  It's a lovely ride.  This was taken just southeast of Brevort, heading southeasterly.

We have sand dunes along this section of 2:

Big lakes demand a light house or two - - 

Soon we will arrive in the St. Ignace area where we will stay for a few nights.  We have only stayed on that side of the Big Mac bridge a time or two, at least one time the campground was less than acceptable in our opinion. So, we picked a new to us place to stay and it turned out to be very nice, just what we like in a campground.  We will spend three nights and ride over to Mackinaw Island from St. Ignace, another new experience as we have always left from Mackinaw City. 

.