Blue Horizon Adventures: Mon Aug 28: Les Cheneaux to Mackinac Island

Alrighty-let’s just get right to the elephant in the room. There is a Mackinac Island, a Mackinac Bridge, Mackinac Lighthouse and a Mackinaw City. ALL of them are pronounced mack-in-aw. The city got sick of mispronunciation, held a referendum and … to hell with history. The original word was Ojibwa-mishimikinaak=Big Turtle. The French Canadians shortened it to Mackinac. Or that's one of the stories, anyway...

Today we were headed for the Big Turtle, the Island. The fudge capital of the world. They didn't invent fudge, but they sell more of it than any other place. Rick doesn't believe this, but the internet says there are 13 fudge shops, selling more than 10,000 lbs daily. Yikes! Remember that it's an island - absolutely everything has to be brought in. My source says 10 tons of sugar is brought in each week. Don't look at me - we haven't eaten any yet...

It was a busy day on the water. More boats than we have seen in a long time.

This may look like a PushMe-PullYou, but it's two freighters passing each other.

I tried this in my 20s. Anyone else?!

Huh - another cruise ship. This past weekend was the famous Fudge Festival (people who come to visit Mackinac Island used to be called 'fudgies'!) and it was pretty crowded. Hopefully they are all leaving today.

Having had an unfortunate experience with this kind of post in the past, we are pretty skittish around them. But Rick has learned a lot in 4 years and things were looking smooth until there was this tremendous BOOM -- just as we went past them to tie up. He almost had a stroke, and I almost fell overboard. Several possible scenarios flashed through our respective brains - most involving massive insurance claims. But, after things calmed down, we realized it was a cannon at the fort on the hill right above us firing at 1pm, as it does. Nothing on the boat was damaged. But the timing was UNCANNY and it took us a long time to once again breath normally.

First up was the 8-mile ride around the perimeter of the island. There were plenty of people, but it was still very enjoyable. There are about 500 year-round residents, and 14,500 summer visitors. Cars are banned, making Mackinac Island home to the only carless highway in the US, M-185, which we rode on!

Here is Rick in front of the Mackinac Bridge, which we hope to cross under on Thurs.

The water is stunningly clear (thanks, Zebra Muscles) - too bad it's too cold to swim. We learned the perfect word for something this clear; pellucid.= translucently clear...

The main drag is a jumble of fudge shops, Victorian detail, bikes and horse-draw conveyances.

Of course there are tour carriages, but the horses are used for everything.There was one horse-drawn cart filled with Amazon boxes! One carriage was full of people going to the famous Grand Hotel, and attached to the back of the carriage was a luggage cart with all their luggage.