Retreat from the heat and wish we were there

 

Yooper Ruthie famous lady of the Michigan
Upper Peninsula, aka UP


 It is to be 100 degrees today which is not our MN weather, but puleeze nobody tell the global warming alarmists.    I walked early this morning and even then, by 8:00AM on the return I was sweaty; the high school track which I often have to myself for 1/4 mile laps was invaded by our Lancer football team and not wanting to mix it up amongst  the boys twice my size and 1/4 my age, I departed the track for the 'hoods and woods.  So its a good day to catch up and post some of the vacation photos.  We have been home a little more than a week now and downloading, editing and dealing with the photos takes time.  In old days, a simpler time, we just took the film out of the camera and dropped it off taking our chances with printed results a week or so later. 

This 2+ weeks motor home trip to the Fleetwood Rally in Goshen Indiana followed by a swing up north to Michigan's upper peninsula and all the lake lore was a great time.  Trip details, we  added only 1376 total motor home miles,  26.5 hours actual driving time, consumed 163.7 gallons of diesel including the 3/4  tankful we brought back home, and appreciated the declining cost of diesel, spending only $587 on fuel.  Altogether not an overly costly trip, $526 for RV sites including our rally gathering that had been prepaid in February, $93 for tours, $19 for tolls,  $217 restaurants, $45 groceries, and a  whopping $458 shopping for other items including my RV purse at the Indiana quilt shop, more microfiber mops and cloths at the RV rally from my favorite vendor, a new carved wooden sign for the RV which Jerry is now staining and shellacking to protect it (there never is a piece of wood that he can just leave as is) and other miscellany and finally a special rally deal to extend Good Sam coverage for a couple more years at $99.  All total only  $2044 spent.  Further poof to those who doubt the economical side to RV travel and we never have to worry about bed bugs from hotels having our own home on wheels.  

Now  the first series of photos of Mackinac Island and departure to it, here I am at the dock mainland and it is  a windy cool day, I was not ready to have my photo taken but in a rare moment Jerry had control of the camera, so here, do I look a bit like Ruthie?  Do not answer!  Ahhhh wish  I were back in the cool lake with the wind.  There was no need to comb hair because it would tousle around.  Fortunately I have a simple  cut that doesn't demand staying in place.   

Rest stop sign about Bridge

The previous day, on our drive to the area a rest stop along the American Legion Highway displayed a nice sign and photo of the bridge.  We were a bit early for our RV site arrival so we dallied at the rest stop outside of Grayling Michigan. It is one of the few we saw amidst the plentiful forests of hardwoods of the area which reminded us of western Canada and British Columbia, an area Jerry especially loves. 


We took a Ferry to the  Island along with the multitudes of others touring that day.  Although locals said that the numbers of tourists were down, we could not tell. To us if there was a downside to this trip it was too many people,  more people than w see in a year here in our town.  I especially dislike crowds so it was a bit of a stretch to have to be amongst so many of them the entire time both  on the island and mainland.  If we ever return to this area it would be September when the crowds disperse.  Tourism is a key if not the key industry of the area.






Our Cadillac arrives at the dock



Jerry took many magnificent shots of the world famous
Macinac Island  bridge from our ferry 



We learned too late that had we stayed across the bridge at
St Ignace, the ferry would have taken us under the bridge

Lite house and Ft Mackinac left, up the hill



The ferry takes about 25-30 minutes to the island;

Here we approach as does another ferry



No kidding about the people and the bikes
We arrive at the dock as others too come and go



Breakfast dockside

Main street on the island.  Bikes,  walkers, or those riding either
horseback or carriages.  We had a carriage ride and tour.
It was a good choice which took us all around and over the island.  





The Island is famous for fudge and lilacs.  This is one of the oldest lilac trees
on the island at 100 years old.  Bloom was done



Meet Dave, handsome, personable MI guy and
 our carriage driver and tour guide for the day.  This was his
second year working there.  He is a college Senior at Northwestern.

Grand hotel carriages were empty

To be continued later around the island and more....I have been sitting here long enough.