The 57th Annual Mackinac Bridge Walk; We did it!! Day 92,93 & 94

our view from the pilot house

Sunday morning, September 1st, Day 92: Wow, we've been traveling 3 months. We left Petosky just after sunrise. The day is cloudy, darn we will be going under the Mackinac bridge again & we were really hoping for a sunny, deep blue sky day. We have following seas which is a great ride for us. A few boats passed us going the other direction & they were bouncing quite a bit. 

We were just ahead of a small rain cell, so it started to drizzle just as we docked @ The Straits Harbor back in Mackinaw City. We came back here for 2 reasons; it's on our way home & we plan on walking the Mackinac bridge on Labor Day tomorrow. We laid low the rest of the day. 

Has anyone noticed that sometimes I write "Mackinac" sometimes "Mackinaw"?  I have researched & it depends what I'm talking about: the bridge, island & waterway straits are Mackinac; but pronounced "Mack-in- aw".  The city & the Coast Guard cutter is Mackinaw pronounced the same way, talk about confusing when I go to write. 

Line of people to get on buses

view from bus, people almost finished

Labor Day, we were in line for a bus @ 7:30 AM; they are very organized with 6 lanes of people for buses & they have 115 school buses from all over Michigan. We get bussed over to St Ignace in the UP, on the other end of the bridge. Then we will walk the 5 mile bridge back to Mackinaw City. They have had up to 70,000 people in the past. I don't think they'll have that many this year because it is cold & windy. The governor starts the walk, I think by 7:00 AM. We arrived to the other side of the bridge @ 8:50 & began our walk. There were a lot of people, strollers & some wheelchairs.  They do not allow pets or wagons. We had to dodge many people to stay walking faster than a slow stroll. At first we had 2 lanes to walk in; one paved & one fully grated. I liked walking on the grating, it was less crowded. About 3/4's of the distance, they narrowed us into one lane & gave the motorized traffic 3 lanes. Needless to say our speed slowed considerably. OK, there's the reason to get going @ 5:30 AM, like the governor did. He finished in 57 minutes, we finished in about 87 minutes. 

the grated lane, the water 300ft below

 

Mackinaw City from the bridge

The Finish line with our certificate

We crossed the finish line & collected our certificate-Yahoo! Found out according to the news, our good friend Cheryl watched, (no, she didn't see us on the news) there were 40,000 walkers. The weather must have kept some people home :(

An eagle tried to snatch our "Lucky duck", but we saved him!

Tuesday, Sept 3rd, we were going to leave but it was windy with small craft warnings, so we stayed put. Biked some of the bike trail to Mill Creek State park, then rode through Mill Creek campground; a huge place 1000 sites, lots of cute cabins with an awesome view of the bridge, right on the water. 

wind generators that power the Marina @ the Straits

This small vase has become one of my favorite purchases.  I pick wildflowers to fill it everywhere I go.  It makes me smile, I hope it does the same for you! :)