5 hour drive up to Straits State Park
Our site was on the small side, it felt like we were sharing our site with our neighbors.
The good news was it was steps away from Lake Huron and a view of the Mighty Mackinac Bridge.
The kids enjoyed skipping rocks and throwing them into the water.
We took a drive to see another view of the bridge and to explore St Ignace the first night.
Jer and I walked down to see the bridge all lit up. The first day driving up and the last day driving home were the only days without rain.
The next morning was foggy and rainy off and on all day. We had breakfast at a diner with a view of Lake Huron and near this lighthouse.
The kids took turns ringing the bell.
We drove to Sault Saint Marie to check out the Soo Locks.
Watching a freighter in the lock.
Next we went to the Soo Locks Museum
and learned how the locks work.
And pretended to operate them.
Then we drove down the road to get on a boat and go through the lock ourselves.
All of the benches upstairs were wet and it rained off and on.
But we made the best of it.
This is the inside of the lock. We needed to go up 21 feet.
Stella touched the side as we went up.
We are halfway up!
The bridge to Canada
This is a hydroelectric power plant.
We walked around looking in the shops and came across bigfoot!
Henry fell asleep on the way back to the campsite.
We were dry enough to start a fire.
Then went to the beach again.
Leila and I went for a walk and came across this snake!
Time for s'mores!
See how close the neighbor is behind us? We had new neighbors on all sides almost every day. Everyone else seemed to stay 1-2 nights tops.
Jer went for an early morning run through St Ignace and watched the sunrise.
Powdered donut breakfast! Then on our way to Tahquamenon Falls.
The kids were not impressed by the upper falls and were complaining about the walking and the stairs.
It was super hot and humid, so I couldn't totally blame them.
We had lunch at the brewery, then drove to the lower falls. We rented a rowboat to go to the island.
We had bought water shoes/crocs for everyone so we could walk through the falls.
This was the best decision - I think it was everyone's favorite activity of the trip!
We started off on a trail that we thought was the trail, but ended up being a side path that we weren't supposed to take.
It brought us to some really cool falls that we had to ourselves.
It was gorgeous and so much fun.
We continued to explore around the island to check out the other sets of waterfalls.
We had heard you could go behind the falls in some spots and wanted to try it. Jer took Henry first.
Then he took Stella.
I went with Leila and managed to slip and fall on my butt.
Here I am pulling her in after me...and I proceeded to lose my croc (which Jer thankfully was able to catch) and make a non-graceful exit from the falls, which he chose not to document (thank you).
We decided we liked the first set of falls the best and went back to those one more time.
I took the path back because my butt was still hurting from my fall, but Jer and the kids took the river back to the boat. Somewhere along the way Leila also fell and got a bit banged up. When we shoved off to go back to the other side, Henry pushed the boat faster than I was ready for and I ended up on my butt once more because the dock was coated in algae.
On the way back to the campground we went through Newberry, and we had to take Jer's picture with this moose again because we did that 12.5 years ago, the last time we were in the UP (and I was pregnant with Leila).
Also on the way back, we stopped at the Cut River Bridge at the suggestion of my coworker, Kathy.
We checked out the door for T. Troll under the bridge.
Just after we left the bridge, it started pouring.
When we got back to the camper, we set up the table so we could eat supper inside and then played Clue.
Before we finished making Henry's bed back up, we had a people pile.
The next day we went to Mackinac Island! We hiked up the hill toward the fort, then passed by it and hiked to see Arch Rock.
You can just see them in the top right corner, but the place was PACKED with people.
We then walked down the stairs to M-185 (the 'highway' that circles the island) and walked along the shoreline of Lake Huron back to town to find lunch. We had researched restaurants the night before and had found one that had a gluten-free chicken nugget kids meal! So we headed there, only to find out that they did not in fact have a gluten-free chicken nugget kids meal.
So we walked to a restaurant that the hostess suggested had gluten-free options, but it was not something Henry would eat.
So we googled more restaurants and picked one, but it had over an hour wait. So we regrouped and walked further up main street and found a restaurant on a side street that only had a 20 minute wait.
The kids were hot and tired and sat outside the restaurant until our table was ready.
Then we walked down main street going into shops looking for souvenirs. There were so many people everywhere!! I have never been to the island when it was this busy.
The kids each found something at the toy store.
Then we stopped and bought some fudge from Joann's and then walked to the Grand Hotel side of the island.
The kids played in the water for a bit.
Then we decided to head back to the campground to get away from all of the crowds.
After supper we went into St Ignace for ice cream at the double decker bus. We sat upstairs - only after opening all of the windows because it was hot and stuffy at first!
We also visited the Indian Village store/museum.
The last day I was trying to convince Jer to just stay at the campground and go to the beach, but he was worried we would regret not showing the kids Pictured Rocks. So we drove up to Munising and took the Pictured Rocks Boat Cruise. We hurried onto the 12PM cruise because it was supposed to rain in the afternoon. We got our tickets, then drove to Hardee's to pick up a quick lunch. We stuffed down our burgers, then brought our fries with us onto the boat. We were late to the line, so we ended up inside the boat instead of on the roof.
The boat was packed, but the inside wasn't too bad because everyone wanted to be on the deck or the upper deck.
We made a few treks out to the deck, but mostly stayed below.
The water is just gorgeous and the sun was out for the ride out (we picked the correct side of the boat and were able to take some pictures while the sun was out).
Just below Stella you can see a coat saving the place of the people who were in the row behind us. They stayed on the deck for the entire trip out, so we took their window to take photos and look out.
Here are some of the people crowding the deck. After we turned around and started to head back, the skies got darker and it began to rain. We let the kids get drinks and they were super cold. These two enjoyed putting them on Jer's arm and neck because he kept shivering every time they did it. It was an entertaining game for a while. Leila wasn't feeling very good, so I rubbed her back and we made the best of it.
About half way back it started to rain and most of the people from the top deck crowded into the inside of the boat with us. We then got into our car and drove to Miner's Castle. The rain cleared up a bit.
This it the top lookout.
This is the lookout right by the castle.
Then we drove back on M-2 again. We stopped at Bayview Inn Restaurant - a small mom & pop diner right on the water for supper. There were 3 other tables of people the whole time we were there.
Then we stopped at the Mystery Spot to witness the strange happenings within the spot.
And finally took one more stroll on the beach.
The next morning we packed up the camper and drove back home.
It was a nice trip and we are glad that we went. I was surprised by how many other tourists were also making the trip up to the UP this year. We did a lot of driving (over 1,100 miles) and spent more money than we intended. It was nice to have a home base at the camper, and we would not have wanted to tear down/set up the camper multiple times. But next time I think we would get a hotel or VRBO or something and move around instead, because we ended up driving a lot farther out of our way because we had to go back to St Ignace every day. It was also a very wet and rainy vacation, which was not helped by the fact that our washing machine broke 2 days before we left and we can't get it fixed for another week. Thankfully we have friends and family nearby who are willing to let us use theirs! :)
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