We grabbed a quick breakfast at McDonalds before getting underway. We only needed one stop for gas and the bathroom and four hours later, the bridge was in our sight!
Our first stop in the city was at Mackinaw Crossings to do some shopping and to eat lunch at Pizza Palace (which came highly recommended). The boys loved all the little gift shops with knick-knacks and the pizza was super cheesy! It was a great start to our trip!
By this point we had eaten to the point of being uncomfortable. Pizza, fudge, popcorn, taffy...yum! We decided to drive a bit down the road to see Lake Michigan/Lake Huron and of course, the bridge! We pulled over, parked, and let the boys get their feet wet in the water. Which never gets old for them...
Surprisingly neither of the boys got soaked, but we did have a ton of sand in the car from everyone's wet sandals. Nothing a vacuum can't handle.
Next stop was Fort Michilimackinac. The boys loved the small playground on the outside of the fort that had a cannon complete with sound for them to play with. We were able to stick around for a Rifle Drill and explored all the restored homes and buildings within the fort. Sean was so into it! I was amazed at how interested he was in everything and the questions he asked us.
It was time to grab dinner, so we went to Audie's, which ranked pretty high on TripAdvisor, but wasn't anything great. The food was all just mediocre. We checked into the hotel, went swimming for a bit, then put the kids to bed. My parents and I watched the Olympics in the adjoining room and munched on fudge and popcorn we bought.
Tuesday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel then went over to Star Line Ferry for our ride over to the Island. It was cool out and foggy, but it actually made for some cool pictures on our ride over. The 9am ride went under the bridge, which we all enjoyed.
We walked up the dock and went right on Main Street to rent some bikes. We wanted to take advantage of the cooler temperature and the cloudy morning. The boys were amused by the "horse fudge" on the road and the smells coming from the fudge shops.
My dad and Sean rode a tag-along bike, I pulled Evan in a trailer for the first four miles, and my mom rode a mountain bike. The views were beautiful! We stopped about a mile in to climb up 207 steps to see Arch Rock.
We stopped after another two miles to let the kids play with the rocks on the beach and to dip their toes in Lake Huron, which wasn't as cold as I thought it would be. It was so breathtaking!
Before we knew it, we had biked 8.2 miles around the island and made it back to Main Street just in time for lunch. We turned in our bikes and walked down to the Pink Pony restaurant. I was so proud of Sean for pedaling with my dad that entire time! I had to buy him a t-shirt that said "I biked it". Lunch was tasty and we had a great booth that overlooked Main Street.
We walked around and shopped after lunch, got ice cream from Joann's Fudge shop, and decided that we wanted to take a Horse Carriage Tour up the island to the center. At this point, we all needed to put our feet up and relax for a while, so we let the horses do the work!
Evan caught a snooze during part of the ride and Sean pointed out that he would prefer to not be in the front row again since he didn't enjoy "looking at the horses' butts", but overall, it was nice to see parts of the island we wouldn't see otherwise. We got off the carriage tour by Fort Mackinac, but decided not to go inside. We needed to grab dinner before getting on the ferry back to the city.
We ate dinner at the Yankee Rebel Tavern and made it just in time for the 6:30pm ferry, which also went under the bridge. We had better seats this time and got to see the "Rooster Tail" that the Star Line boats do. It was sunny and beautiful on our way back to the city!
Wednesday morning we went back over to Mackinaw Crossings to eat breakfast at Pancake Chef, which was delicious! I had a breakfast skillet with a side of pumpkin pancakes and they were fantastic! It was a cool, rainy morning, so we decided to do some last minute shopping and get on the road. We drove to Gladwin to drop the boys off with Scott and his family for the Ogemaw County Fair the rest of the week. The boys are so lucky to go from one vacation to another! They'll spend the rest of the week with their Nana, Pops, cousins, and more family going to the fair and playing in the lake.
As for me, I'm off to Portland in a few hours here. I'm packed and ready to see my brother and sister-in-law! I'm sooo excited, but definitely a little anxious being away from the boys for a week. Thank Goodness for Facetime...
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