TRUTH IN ADVERTISING! I have to admit that I admired this Mackinaw City store for telling it like is - a tourist trap. 

Today we slowly start to head back home. We crossed back into the UP and set up camp at Lake Michigan National Campground just west of St. Ignace and the Mackinac Bridge. Before crossing the bridge, we stopped off at Mackinaw City.

Mackinaw City was an interesting little tourist town. As expected, there were a zillion Mackinaw fudge shoppes and three times more T-shirt shops. The entire downtown looked like it was recently built. The stores were pretty much single-story, brightly painted, wooden buildings. I got a kick out of the Mackinaw Outfitters store. While most outfitters have cool camping gear, this one is one giant T-shirt and sweatshirt shop.

Downtown Mackinaw City has two adjacent business areas: 1) The shops that line two downtown city blocks; 2) A fancy wandering strip-mall area of shops called Mackinaw Crossings.

Entering the Mackinaw Crossings shopping area.

The shops in the Mackinaw Crossings shopping area.

In most towns with historic old buildings you will see buildings built in the 1800s. I got a kick out of this 1997 building. At least they used an old-tyme building facade style. Being wood and not brick or stone, I wonder if it will last a century or two?

Back out on Main Street, a fudge shop.

No tourist town is complete without some kind of goofy theme shop.

This was not a camping outfitter store.

Leaving the Mackinaw Crossings shopping area at its prime shoreline location.

Mackinaw City, on the LP side of the bridge, and St. Ignace, on the UP side of the bridge were a fair bit different. While Mackinaw City was new and shiny, St. Ignace is older and more original. St. Ignace won our hearts with about 20 pastie restaurants. The pastie shop we settled on had pastie sliders. We each got an order of three smaller pasties, which they called sliders, along with gravy. One large pastie was $7.50 while the 3 smaller sliders were $5. I spent a good ten minutes sizing both up and hands down, the sliders were the better deal. And they were good!

Just north of St. Ignace is the cheesy Castle Rock road attraction. This is right out of an old Route 66 time-warp. Anything this blatantly cheesy, we couldn’t pass up. Some shop owner somehow got custody of a tall thin pinnacle of rock. I would have thought that the State would have gotten ahold of this natural landform by now.

Anyway, the owner built a long stairway to the top and put a tourist trap store at the bottom. To round things out, they fashioned a giant fiberglass Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox between the store and the staircase. What more could you ask for? It cost a buck for the privilege to climb the stairs. The view was worth the climb and the buck.

Great views from the top of Castle Rock. I loved the green and blue hues of the water. The green was shallow water and the blue was deep water.

I believe that this is Mackinac Island in the distance.

After checking the weather for tomorrow, which promised to be cool but full sun, we went to the Shepler Mackinac Island ferry service. There are two ferry companies servicing the island - Shepler and Star Line. Star Line had jet boats that threw up a giant plume of water behind it. Shelpler was a bit cheaper. We went cheaper, and bought our tickets for tomorrow. Star Line would have been $100 for two passengers and two ebikes round-trip, plus their free parking lot was a couple blocks away. Shelper’s fee came to $92 and their free parking lot was next to the boat.  

On the way to the campground, we stopped off at the Mackinac Bridge State Park. There was a small museum building that didn’t have much in the line of bridge memorabilia. It did show a terrific 30 minute documentary on the bridge. Prior to the bridge opening up in November 1957, a ferry was needed to cross the five mile Straits of Mackinac. During deer hunting season, it was a two-day wait to get on the ferry.

The Mackinac Bridge is a majestic piece of engineering. It is amazing what "man" can accomplish when we put our minds to it.

Our campground was a typical National Campground - lots of room and nicely wooded, but with no electricity or water hookups. The campground was right on the beach and we took an evening stroll. The air was cold. Even with full sun, tomorrow’s temps were only going to reach mid 60s on the island. If the wind is calm, that won’t be too bad.

Our campsite, as all campsites in the Lake Michigan National Campground, had easy access to the beach.

Trivia: Native Americans originally called Mackinac Island, Michilimackinac, which meant "Great Turtle", because of the island’s shape. The French shortened it to Mackinac. The British came along and changed that to Mackinaw. Mackinaw stuck for Mackinaw City and Mackinac stuck for the island, the Straits, and the bridge. Now you know the rest of the story.

Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum.

Dave and Wanda

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