August 30 to September 4: St. Ignace, Michigan

Running a little behind our original plan, we finally made it to the Upper Peninsula! We were heading this way when the Elderhostel ended back in June . . . better late than never.

We visited the Bridge View Park several times to enjoy the view and take pictures.

We enjoyed a great day on Mackinac Island. By the way, sometimes it is spelled Mackinac with a c and sometimes Mackinaw with a w, but either way it's pronounced with the w. Just thought you'd like to know.

We took the Star Line so we could high-tail it to Mackinac Island. There are three competing services and I think the water spray is purely decorative with no necessary cause or function.

We strolled a little, had lunch, and then boarded a horse-drawn carriage (those horses are fabulous artists) for a tour of the island.

We passed the land-side of the Grand Hotel. It was fun to see this as there are TV shows featuring it on the History Channel. The land-side road is on the right end of this picture.

There is a lovely butterfly house. Both Ron and Joyce enjoy butterfly houses and this turned out to be much more than anticipated. The butterflies loved Ron's shirt (and who can blame them). Some landed on Joyce, too, but these are Joyce's photos so you get to see Ron.

There were several species we had not seen elsewhere including this white and orange guy.

We didn't have time to visit the fort . . . next time.

As we were strolling through town again we enjoyed the gardens that were in full bloom.

Now, the Mystery Spot is one of those tourist traps one sees advertised far and wide. We hadn't been to a good Tourist Trap since Hole-N-The-Wall near Moab, Utah, so we were due. This turned out to be a great one that included miniature golf and a maze on the combined ticket (in for a penny, in for a pound Joyce always says about tourist traps so we got the combined tickets).

Our tour guide was great and encouraged participation in all of the demonstrations. Here Ron puts his toes on the board and stands straight and tall.

The night before the big Labor Day walk across the Mackinac Bridge we were down at Bridge View Park, which was to be parking for walkers and included instructions for them to follow to get onto the bridge.

Labor Day the bridge is half for walkers and half for motorized traffic, delightfully slow traffic. We crossed the bridge in the car at 8 to 10 mph so we got to observe and take lots of photos. Here we have the lines for the port-a-potties at the start area.

Normally the walkers must start their crossing between the hours of 7 am and 11 am but they allowed people to continue crossing until 3 pm because there were 57,000 walkers to mark the 50th anniversary of the bridge. The bridge is about five miles long so this is not an insignificant walk.

As we approached the second upright, Ron thought he spotted people on the top . . .

. . . and he did! The photographers had be to very dedicated to the one shot as they couldn't easily scramble to another location for a different view.

Everyone crosses from the Upper Peninsula to the Lower Peninsula and here at the finish line the walkers pooled by the hundreds (and probably thousands) as they recovered a little and then headed off for the buses to go back across to their cars or walked, some for miles more, to their cars on the finish line end.

Here is Joyce with her certificate for completing the 2007 Labor Day State Street Bridge Walk. It's in Cheboygon. It's about two blocks long. We came upon it by accident and joined the walkers. We were eligible for a free hot dog, too, but we chose to continue on to a restaurant for lunch.

Meanwhile back at the RV, we hadn't had DC power since Friday night. This translates to: no lights, no air conditioning, no hot water, and no bringing in of the slide-out rooms, dumping of tanks (we have a powered macerater), bringing in of steps and many other little annoyances. We eventually learned, with the help of CoachNet (AAA for RVers), that the generator would at least help us perform those tasks vital to travel (pull in rooms and steps).