Travels of the Rennhack family
🚗 Domestic 7/3/2019 – 7/6/2019
Now home to pack, load the car and head north to Mackinac Island.
Kathy, Lisa, Thomas, Grandma and I set out for St. Ignace. We packed the van that morning, and Lisa and Thomas loaded gear into the back. The frog came along for the ride too, hornworms and all.
We drove up the coast and crossed the Mackinac Bridge as the sun went down over the water. We stayed at St. Ignace that night, and sat around a fire outside before Thomas turned in.
Three generations ready to rock Mackinac Island.
Lunch with an incredible view
Dinner with our niece. We loved catching up with her and dinner was amazing.
What a fun day on Mackinac Island. Hydro Jet over to the island followed by a carriage tour, the butterfly house, Ft. Mackinac, lunch at the Tea Room, 8.2 mile bike ride around the island on the only state highway that doesn't allow motorized vehicles, shaved ice, fudge tasting, a haunted house, a mirror maze, dinner with our niece at The Pink Pony and a Hydro Jet back to St. Ignace. In an hour we'll be on a fireworks cruise on Lake Huron. The Rennhacks vacation hard!
Sunset cruise under the Mackinac Bridge. So beautiful.
We took the ferry over to Mackinac Island in the morning, the whole family in our red shirts for the Fourth. No cars are allowed on the island, so once we stepped off the dock everything moved by bike, horse, or foot. We walked Main Street past the shops and the horse-drawn carriages, then spent a good stretch of the morning in the butterfly house, where butterflies kept landing on our hats and, more than once, right on my face.
From there we walked up to Fort Mackinac and had lunch on the tea room porch, looking out over the harbor and the marina below. After lunch we toured the fort itself, looked at the cannons, and walked through the old officers' quarters.
In the afternoon we rented bikes and rode the loop around the island, stopping at Arch Rock, the British Landing marker, and Devil's Kitchen along the way. Grandma and Lisa took a minute together on the rocky shore. Back in town we watched fudge being made, cooled off with shaved ice, and Thomas and Lisa each picked out a treat.
We had dinner at the Pink Pony that evening. The ferry ride back took us in close under the Mackinac Bridge just as the sun was going down, the sky turning orange behind the towers. We spent the night again in St. Ignace.
Super annoyed that my "we must show up 20 minutes before departure time" policy is clearly not sufficient for boat tours in Michigan. My pictures of Pictured Rocks will be taken out a window. On the bright side, I'm on a boat on Lake Superior with my crew. The good trumps the bad.
Pictured Rocks cruise was simply incredible. The captain gave great commentary and the windows on the lower decks opened for the most beautiful views.
Lunch before we head to the falls. A fun themed restaurant. The Pappy Yokum's was great.
Such a beautiful day at Tahquamenon Falls. We visited both the Upper and Lower Falls.
We left the Mackinac Island area and drove west to Munising for a boat tour of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The morning started foggy on the water, but the sky cleared to blue partway through, and the boat carried us along the cliffs past Miners Castle, Battleship Rock and the arches, with kayakers passing beneath the sea caves far below and a lighthouse standing along the shoreline. One of the kids fell asleep on the ride back to the dock.
We had lunch at the Dogpatch, a restaurant in Munising, then drove on to Tahquamenon Falls. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the Upper Falls, walking the boardwalks and the staircase down toward the river and posing for pictures at the overlooks. Lisa caught a rainbow rising out of the mist, and the kids climbed into a wooden moose cutout for a photo. A sign at the falls put the flow at 3,585 gallons a second.
Instead of driving all the way home after dinner, we stopped for the night in St. Ignace, where Thomas and Lisa got in a swim before bed.
Ready to zipline.
Ziplining adventure. They loved it.
We were not done with the Upper Peninsula yet. Before crossing back over the bridge we stopped at the Mystery Spot in St. Ignace, where the kids balanced on the tilted platforms.
At Mill Creek Discovery Park we walked the old sawmill, then strapped into harnesses for the Eagle's Flight Zip Line through the treetops. After lunch at Audie's in Mackinaw City we walked out to Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse for one more look at the bridge, then finished the afternoon at Fort Michilimackinac, watching soldiers in red coats fire a cannon.
By mid-afternoon we pointed the car south, and were home that evening.
