Stats for August 19, 2018

Origin:  Mackinaw City Marina

Destination:  Harbor Springs Anchorage

Distance:  53.7 miles

Speed:  8.8 mph

Time on the Move:  6 hours and 12 minutes

After we said goodbye to our cousins and Grandma Hays, we set our sights on the next adventure.  Passing underneath the Mackinaw Bridge was next on the list for the day.  The Mighty Mac is a 5 mile long suspension bridge separating the upper peninsula and lower peninsula of Michigan that was finished in 1957.  It is HUGE!!  I am not a big fan of heights and even going underneath the bridge was a little creepy to me (but then I’m also afraid of big boats, so go figure…).  One cool fact is that the body of water east of the bridge is Lake Huron and west of the bridge is Lake Michigan.  There are no other physical boundaries separating the lakes, just the bridge that crosses about 200 feet above the water–seems like it’s actually the same lake to me?!

The water was calm and flat for our trip, so it was easy to sit back and enjoy the view.  As we got close, there was a big RV crossing the bridge (in the pic above) and I waved out our front window, and sure enough, the passenger waved right back!  I wish it could have been the Hayses on their way back to Minnesota I was waving to, but they crossed the bridge about a half hour before we went underneath.

After we passed the bridge we finalized our destination for the day.  We were hoping to head to Beaver Island but there was some bad weather predicted on Tuesday, so we figured we should get to a place where we could hunker down and be safe if the weather actually kicked up.  We didn’t want to leave just one short day for Beaver Island, so we bypassed it and headed south to Harbor Springs.

The 4 of us (before Toby was born) visited Harbor Springs about 5 summers ago with the extended Addis family, great family friends of Kelly’s.  So we had some familiarity with the town and the area, but then again, everything is different by water.  The ride was fairly uneventful, though it was quite scenic passing by beaches (SANDY BEACHES!!  Not rocks!!) and beautiful cottages mansions along the water.  As we pulled in to Little Traverse Bay the amount of boat traffic increased significantly and Mike and I struggled to find our anchorage with all the people on the water.  We ended up pulling right next to the City Beach in a good spot.

Hayley was off to shore in her kayak before we knew it.  The boys were exhausted from days spent playing with cousins, so one was sleeping and one was too crabby to play.  Mike worked on fixing our anchor light that gave out about a week ago, and sure enough, he had it fixed before too long.  Working up on top of the sundeck inspired him to jump off of our hard top for a little swim (about a 15+ foot jump!).  After a bit, the wind shifted and we ended up moving out a bit further into the bay for some more space.  It was a quiet night as we were all exhausted from cousin camp!

The next morning we went exploring in Harbor Springs.  A playground on the beach, cookies, painted rocks everywhere, and walking around all the beautiful houses and flowers.  It is truly a beautiful town, but there is only so much to do if you don’t want to buy anything and you don’t want to eat anything.  We made reservations in Charlevoix for that afternoon, and went back to the boat to finish up some chores.  Hayley and Toby swam off the swim platform, and we headed out.  Thanks for a cozy night and beautiful flowers, Harbor Springs!!  Thanks for following, everyone!!