August 1st, we crossed the straights of Mackinaw into the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, arriving at Petoskey about thirty miles south of the Mackinac Bridge. Petoskey is located on the northeast shore of Lake Michigan. The Mackinac Toll Bridge, aka "Big Mac", is almost five miles across.
The Mackinac Bridge connects the upper and lower peninsula of Michigan. The "Big Mac" is the third longest suspension bridge in the world.
We were greeted on arrival at the Jellystone Campground in Petoskey by "Yogi".
Our site 467 is located in the new section of the park. The campground is very nice, and the nightly fee was our most expensive one ever.
ODEN STATE FISH HATCHERY
Oden State Fish Hatchery is located in Alanson, Michigan, just east of Petoskey.
The hatchery, opened in 2002, replaced the original facility that opened in 1921.
Each of the runways housed either 200,000 brown or rainbow trout. One track feeder serviced an entire run.
This trout nursery reminded us so much of our hatchery experience in Maine.
The path behind the raceways took us to the freshwater spring, that supplies the hatchery.
There were some very large brown and rainbow trout living the good life.
Most of Michigan's west coast consists of large sand dunes and miles of beautiful beaches.
WORLD'S LARGEST CHERRY PIE
This pie had 4,950 pounds of cherries and weighed about seven tons total. The town of Charlevoix, in 1976, built an oven and pan to bake the World's Largest Cherry Pie with a diameter of 14 feet. This record held until 1987, when Traverse City took back the title by baking a cherry pie over 17 feet in diameter and 14 tons.
BAYFRONT PARK
The shoreline in downtown Petoskey was transformed from an industrial site to a 25-acre park.
Little Traverse History Museum in Bayfront Park is housed in the historic rail station.
A section of the museum is dedicated to Ernest Hemingway and his family who spent many summers at their cottage, Windemere, on Walloon Lake, just south of Petoskey.
The clock tower at the end of the promenade chimed every hour.
Bayfront Park Waterfall
Little Traverse Bay
CROSS IN THE WOODS
At 55 feet tall, the Cross of the Woods Catholic Shrine, is the second largest crucifix in the world.
MACKINAW CITY
We drove the scenic Tunnel of Trees (M119) north from Petoskey toward Mackinaw City. This iconic drive snakes along the shoreline of Michigan between Harbor Springs and Cross Village.
The Mackinac Bridge was opened in 1957. It stands 200 feet above the water.
We took a break at a pocket park to admire "Big Mac" and the straights of Mackinaw, the divide between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.
ICEBREAKER MACKINAW MARITIME MUSEUM
The retired U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker, Mackinaw, was built in the height of WWII to keep the shipping lanes open for large freighters to transport raw materials though the Great Lakes to the industrial cities. It was necessary to bring ore from the mines in and around Lake Superior to keep the factories running in cities, such as Gary, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit.
Decommissioned in 2006 after 62 years of service, the icebreaker is now a museum.
View of the aft deck from the wheelhouse.
We watched as Shepler's Ferry took boatloads of visitors to and from Mackinaw Island.
No trip to Mackinaw is complete without watching fudge being made, sampling and taking some home for later.
2 comments:
We took a week-long trip to Northern Michigan in June of 2022 and visited some of the same areas. What a nice place to spend some time in the summer! We were scheduled to volunteer at the Jordan River NFH in Northern Michigan the summer of 2020, but then COVID...
I remember reading your adventures in your Blog. Minnesota and Michigan are both wonderful places in the summer. We will be following Lake Michigan south until after Labor Day. We miss seeing your adventures in your Blog.
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