Sunday, May 17, 2015--Detroit to Mackinaw City
Today was a travel day. We left Detroit about 9:30 and headed northward. We turned off on Michigan Highway 15 which is a scenic route. Our first destination was the town of Frankenmuth, a German-settled village which has built a huge tourist trade around a Bavarian theme. It has restaurants, shops, bakeries, etc., all in buildings with Bavarian-style architecture. The town is built along a river which has a steam paddle boat that gives tours, and there is a covered wooden bridge that goes over the river. It's very scenic, but it is also very artificial. It's a huge success with tourists, though, and the whole thing seems to have been developed by a woman named Evelyn Zender who first established a successful chicken restaurant in the city and then added one feature after another until it became what it is today.
From there, we drove to Bay City which has a very large downtown which is being redeveloped along its riverfront with a promenade, hotels, condos, etc. It also has a multi-block long section of Center Street that is lined with impressive old homes.
Next, we headed straight for Mackinaw City, our final destination which was another 2 1/2 hours away. We arrived at 18:00 and found exactly what Wes' sister had described that she encountered last May when she was here--BUGS!!! She claimed they were mosquitoes, but they actually are midge flies which don't bite and seem to be bugs much like the ones we call "love bugs" in Texas. They fly in swarms and tend to stay close to warm areas, meaning that they will swirl around a body and follow it along! It's a big hassle to deal with them. After checking into our room, we walked downtown with the bugs swarming while we tried to fan and swat them away. It would be nice to have one of those net headpieces that they sell, because even if they don't sting, they are bothersome and one has to be careful not to breathe them in through the nose or the mouth!
Mackinaw City itself is quite nice. It gets lots of tourists who stop here to visit Mackinac Island (a ferry ride away). (As the local brochure says, "Whether it ends in 'aw' or 'ac,' it's always pronounced Mack-in-Awe!") That (visiting the island) is what we will do tomorrow. The city where we are tonight has fudge and other types of candy shops, restaurants, bakeries, gift shops, and lots of motels. There are three ferry companies making the trip to the island and back.
It's going to be a hassle trying to enjoy the island tomorrow with these bugs. (To enter our room, we've learned to open the door just enough that we can finish pushing it open when we arrive. Then we walk down the hallway 5-6 doorways, turn, and run together to get ahead of the bugs. We rush through the door and close it quickly.) So far, we have found only a couple of the bugs in our room, whereas it is quite common to have a hundred or more of them swirling around our bodies outside. But being this close, we plan to go to the island even if we have to fight the bugs!
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