After a quick stop at an RV store looking for replacement running lights (for the one broken in Buffalo) and picking up new wiper blades we were headed north! Two days of driving along Interstate 75 with an overnight stop in West Branch got pretty boring – lots of farms once you are outside of the cities.
Eventually we arrived in Mackinaw City – the Mackinac Bridge to the Upper Peninsula was visible from about eight miles away! We drove into town before crossing the bridge. After passing a fun restaurant and the old settlement of Colonial Michilimackinac we explored the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse which looks a bit like a castle.
The keeper’s house attached to the lighthouse is actually a duplex that housed the families of both the keeper and assistant keeper. The keeper’s side is furnished to reflect life in 1910; the assistant keeper side has exhibits of history and technology of the lighthouse. And then we climbed the lighthouse to see the view! I didn’t go the last little bit – after the spiral stairs was a ladder – but I could see out the round windows just below the top. Since heights don’t bother Charlie he got to see it all – and took pictures of the bridge and the Fog Signal Building.
Once back outside we were just in time for a demonstration of the fog signal – it is really loud! The current signal has been moved to the bridge – but the pattern of the sound is the same. Before leaving we spent a bit of time in the shipwreck museum – there are models of some of the boats that went down along with artifacts that have been recovered. And we looked around the gift shop on the way out and I purchased another model to add to my collection of lighthouses I have climbed. I may eventually look for models of the lighthouses we visited in Maine even though we didn’t climb them – the company no longer makes them but they sometimes show up on Ebay.
And then we finally crossed Mackinac Bridge to the Upper Peninsula!
Click here for pictures of Mackinaw City.
The Travel Adventures of Cheryl and Charlie 