Mackinaw City MI 8/8/12 and 8/9/12

NOTE RE LOOPER LOCATOR: We have ongoing problems with the Looper Locator. Evidently when I enter the actual coordinates that show on our GPS, we end up somewhere in a corn field. I tried it again and it did the same thing. So in the future, I will enter the city name and you can open up Google Earth and see the community we are in, with the knowledge that we are probably not in the city but in a marina somewhere. In fact, you can be assured that we are in the marina!!  So here is the looper locator showing us in Mackinaw City with the strong assurance that we are actually in the municipal marina!!

http://greatloop.org/mod/aglcalocator/membermap.php?id=1001

Instead of going to Cheboygan MI we decided to continue on to Mackinaw City. We are a little superstitious about Mackinaw since we have been foiled by weather so many times before in our attempts to get to Mackinaw. We really want to get to the top so we can be sure of the weather. We are planning to stay here over the weekend.

This is another lovely municipal marina, right next to Shepler's Ferry over to Mackinaw Island. Like most of the others, it is half full or less. The people are great, the marina is clean and lovely, and we are right at the "downtown" tourist center. Plus they have a ship store!! What more can a boater ask for?

I am writing this on Thursday evening. So far we found the rec center and went to the gym, biked over and spent a few hours at Ft. Michelamackinaw, and seen the lighthouse.

The fort and lighthouse are right next to the Mackinaw Bridge.





Here is Kermit in a teepee outside of the fort. Naturally they blow off a cannon every hour! We couldn't miss that.
We haven't had fudge or carmel corn but I think it will be injected if we wait any longer. Appears to be mandatory.

On the agenda for the rest of the weekend is Mill Creek State Park (2 mile bike ride) with an adventure course including a wall climb, high ropes, and zip line - on MY bucket list!!

Then we want to rent a car to go to the International Dark Sky Park (one of only 6 in the US) to see the Persius Meteor Shower on Saturday 8/10 and take a kayak in the lakes south of here between Cheboygan and Petosky. We could have done that from Cheboygan too but this way we can combine it with the Dark Sky experience.

Update again later!!