Michigan's Upper Peninsula Stop #1

We arrived at our first stop in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on 2 Aug 2024. We stayed at Castle Rock Lake Front Campground in St. Ignace Michigan. We learned the correct pronunciation of a few names while we were here: St. Ignace is pronounced Saint Ignus; Mackinac is pronounced Mackinaw; Sault Ste. Marie is pronounced Soo Saint Marie. To me (Anita) is appears that the Indian spelling remains with a French translation in the end pronunciation. Anyway, I digress... We've had a great time on our first stop back in the USA.

We needed to restock on food so we went to Cheboygan for groceries and fuel on Saturday 3 Aug. This required us to cross the Mackinac Bridge over the Straits of Lake Michigan. We also attended mass at 5pm at St. Ignatius Loyola Catholic Church in St. Ignace. Our first full day went by pretty fast.

On Sunday we climbed the 171 steps to the top of Castle Rock. This is right across the road from our campground and we kept seeing people up there, so we wanted to see the view from the top of Castle Rock. It is somewhat commercialized/touristy, but we're glad we did it. We stayed around the campsite the rest of the day prepping our bikes for our day trip to Mackinac Island on Monday. We enjoyed a campfire on Sunday evening.

Castle Rock St. Ignace Michigan 4 August 2024

We saw this every time we left our campground

Castle Rock St. Ignace Michigan 4 August 2024

Touristy

Castle Rock St. Ignace Michigan 4 August 2024

View from the top of Castle Rock

Castle Rock St. Ignace Michigan 4 August 2024

Castle Rock St. Ignace Michigan 4 August 2024

Castle Rock St. Ignace Michigan 4 August 2024

Paper Birch ceiling that's 53 years old

Castle Rock St. Ignace Michigan 4 August 2024

Castle Rock St. Ignace Michigan 4 August 2024

We each got our little sticker after we got back

The highlight and must-see was on Monday 5 Aug 2024 when we took our bikes on the ferry to Mackinac Island. No cars or motor vehicles of any kind are allowed on Mackinac Island, so residents and visitors ride bikes, horses or horse drawn carriages. The one exception on motor vehicles is an ambulance. There is a hospital on the island and one ambulance for quicker transport of someone in need. We found taking our bikes saved some time waiting in a long line to rent bikes, not to mention the cost of renting bikes. We rode around the whole island which is only 8 miles. We stopped to see Devil's Kitchen, The Arch and to eat our packed lunch along the way. After riding around the island, we parked our bikes and walked around downtown. It wasn't a relaxing day of site seeing with all the bikes and horse drawn carriages to watch out for, but once we changed our mindset we had a nice day on Mackinac Island. Of note, with so many horse-drawn carriages, the smell of horse manure was never far away.

We had heard that we should go inside the Grand Hotel while on the island. We got tickets and walked around inside and out on the grounds. We even sat on the longest front porch (660 feet long) in the world for a while. The construction of the hotel was in 1887 before power tools, but it was completed in 93 days! We enjoyed our tour of the hotel and our break in the rocking chairs, but we still had to ride our bikes back to the ferry to get back to St. Ignace.

We were talking to a couple in line for the ferry back to St. Ignace and they said they're from Michigan and had never been to the island before and won't be returning. We were squeezed in on the ferry ride back with 248 other passengers. It was one of the rare times since Covid that we've been is such a crowd. We're usually out in the open and "safe" distances from other people.

Ferry Ride from St. Ignace MI to Mackinac Island MI 5 Aug 2024

Ferry Ride from St. Ignace MI to Mackinac Island MI 5 Aug 2024

Our ferry trip included a special trip under the Mackinac bridge

Ferry Ride from St. Ignace MI to Mackinac Island MI 5 Aug 2024

Ferry Ride from St. Ignace MI to Mackinac Island MI 5 Aug 2024

Grand Hotel