Great Lakes Day 14: Kitch-iti-kipi, Fayette Historic State Park

 Friday morning, we said goodbye to Mackinac City and headed towards Wisconsin.

Megan, Matthew and Me with our car.

Me and Megan at Cut River Bridge. There was a lot of nice color!

Megan, Matthew, Me and U

The view from the bridge towards Lake Michigan.

Me and Megan

U and Megan with the bridge.

Cool looking bridge.

Me at another scenic overlook on our drive.

Megan, Me and Matthew at Kitch-iti-kipi.

Matthew moving the raft. He turned the wheel both ways.

Looking down at the spring. The water is so clear. The spring is about 40 feet deep. 

It is around 200 feet across the spring.

So clear!

We saw a number of fish swimming over the spring.

Some sort of lakeweed growing on the log.

We then went to Fayette Historic State Park which was a town that manufactured charcoal pig iron in the late 1800s. It was in a very picturesque setting.

Inside one of the kilns.

Megan, Me and Matthew

The furnace complex

U, Megan and Matthew with the furnace complex and some of the other town buildings behind.

We then drove through the rain to our hotel in Wisconsin. Cute quote from along the drive from Megan, "Anything can happen in a little town in Michigan."

Great Lakes Day 13: Colonial Michilimackinac, Lighthouses

 Today was a sunny, beautiful day! First day with no rain in over a week.

We went to McGulpin lighthouse and grounds. We walked down to the shore of Lake Michigan.

Megan and U with McGulpin Rock and Lake Michigan. See the Mighty Mac way in the background?

McGulpin Lighthouse. We really enjoyed touring it as we were able to go into all of the rooms and really get a feel for what it was like to live there.

View from the top of the lighthouse. There was some really nice fall color!

Megan outside the adjacent building.

We then went to Colonial Michilimackinac which was really interesting. We learned about the people who lived here (not just the approximately 80 soldiers--there were around 2000 people in the summer and 200 in the winter). One of the officers had a chipmunk named Tim. They also had 2 types of dogs, a pair of swans and a parrot as pets. Soldiers who wished to marry had to get permission and the prospective wife would be interviewed to see what she could add to the community. We learned about the food they ate, including that infant and child mortality went down when they started drinking tea and coffee (because the water was boiled). 

Firing the cannon.

Some of the charred remains from the powder room. When the fort was moved to Mackinac Island, they burned the structures that remained at Colonial Michilimackinac so that they could not be used by invaders.

Rifle firing

Inside a waginogan that the Natives lived in during the time.

Outside the waginogan.

Matthew and Megan trying out the beds in the barracks. They said they were scratchy.

Captain Matthew reading a declaration.

U on the elevated walkway with some of the grounds of the fort behind him. You can also see where they are excavating a row house. Once they are done with that, they will build a replica.

Communal bathroom...

Original well with water still in it.

View from one of the watchtowers.

Matthew and the cannon at one of the gates.

Matthew really enjoyed sitting on cannons.

A view into one of the yards from the elevated walkway.

Silver punch bowl from the DePeysters, one of the British commanders of the post.

Info about the bowl.

Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse. 

Dinner at Mama Mia's.

Special mayo.

Some memorabilia from the construction of the Mackinac Bridge.

Views from our hotel room.

We roasted marshmallows and ate s'mores on the beach.

Great Lakes Day 12: Mackinac Island

 Everyone was excited to go to Mackinac Island. After eating breakfast, we took a shuttle to the ferry and headed over.

Megan, U, Me and Matthew on the ferry.

A view of the bridge from the ferry. We had chosen a ferry that went under the bridge; however, due to the waves and wind, we didn't end up going under it.

Lighthouse by the island

Harbor light

View of the island from the boat.

We rented bikes to ride around the island. It's about an 8 mile trip and includes the only highway that doesn't allow cars.

We hiked up to Arch Rock.

Megan, U, Me and Matthew at Arch Rock.

Matthew, Megan and Me on the highway with the arch behind us.

The water was relatively calm and it was quite peaceful on this side of the island.

The white caps here were birds. There were so many birds on the water!

The Mighty Mac as seen from British Landing, which is about halfway through the ride.

Matthew, U and Megan at British landing.

Megan made fast friends with this log. She enjoyed picking it up, carrying it and standing on it. She really liked Mackinac Island a lot. She enjoyed the bike ride especially riding through puddles. She kept saying, "Mom, guess what?" and would then tell Me something she liked about the island, like the puddles or birds or horses. I think her current plan is to live here someday.

Panoramic shot of the area including Megan with her log and our bikes.

U and Me at Devil's Kitchen.

Matthew wished he had an adult bike instead of a kid bike. Next time, he will request one.

After buying a lot of fudge (delicious!), we went to Fort Mackinac.

We went to the cannon firing. However, the primer did not come out of the cannon so they couldn't fire it. It was great listening to them talk and we learned a lot. For example, Fort Mackinac was the 2nd National Park after Yellowstone. It was run by the war department and they had lots of tourists come to see the cannons fired and such.

We toured the fort some.

Megan designing a fort.

Matthew building a strong double-layered fort wall.

Inside the wall.

Outside the wall.

View from the fort. Marquette Park is directly below the fort.

Nice fall color!

Rifle shooting demonstration

Learning about the supplies soldiers carried when they were on the march. It started to rain during this demonstration.

Cannon firing. It was successful this time, with lots of little tinfoil pieces floating down afterwards.

Me with cannon. We looked around the fort a bit more and then decided to head back on the 4 pm ferry since it was raining again.

View of the fort on our way to the ferry.

Leaving the island. The fort is at the top of the city.

Megan, Me and Matthew on the ride back. It was pretty windy.

We ate dinner at Darrow's Family Restaurant.

Me's fish and sweet potato (which was soooo yummy!)

Matthew had to order a child portion of an adult meal and got a lot of food! He enjoyed the steak.

Megan liked her soup.

U enjoyed his fish.

Matthew thought this area on the stairs of the hotel was his own personal sitting area.

A couple of casings from the firing plugs from the cannon.