"Are we there yet?"

Monday/Tuesday, August 7 & 8…

Two long travel days! Monday we drove to Toledo, where I patronized Kroger Grocery & the post office while supervising 4 loads of wash at the Express Laundromat (good machines, quick drying time, but I had to purchase & load their card instead of using the quarters I’ve been squirreling away). Overnight at the Elks (where the bar closed at 7, so Greg didn’t even get to chat).

The bridge goes right over the
"pinch point" between
 Lake Michigan & Lake Huron

Another 5+ hours on the road Tuesday took us to St. Ignace, Michigan. (That’s IGniss, not IgNACE as I expected). What’s cool about St. Ig is that we had to cross the 5-mile Mackinac Bridge to get there. Connecting the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, the “Mighty Mac” is the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere. It’s beautiful, and the lake below was equally lovely – multiple shades of rippling blue that appeared very clear. (The $14 toll at the end wasn’t quite so pleasant.) Tomorrow we’ll take the ferry over to Mackinac (pronounced Makinaw) Island, home to the Grand Hotel (and some 600 horses – no motorized vehicles allowed).

Water (120' here; the lake gets deeper)

Bridge (552' high)

BlogThought...  Even though I spent my college years near the shores of Lake Erie, I never really paid serious attention to which lake was which (especially the 3 west of Erie). Over the last few days I've learned that while technically all the great lakes are naturally connected, artificial waterways are sometimes necessary for navigation. Michigan & Huron, however, flow smoothly through these Straits of Mackinac. And, after 71 years, I think I've finally got the order of all the lakes straight as well.

(The photos below are from our trip to the falls on Sunday.)

Nikola Tesla (and friend). Tesla designed one of
the first AC hydroelectric plants, at Niagara Falls.

Solitary Gull