Day Two of our 5 Year Anniversary Trip

If you missed Day 1 of our trip, from yesterday, here is a link to read all about it.

Day 2 of our trip was pretty busy! So there are an abundance of pictures, sorry. ;-)

We woke up, snapped a couple more pictures of the lake and then checked out of our hotel.

I believe thats Mackinac Island directly across the lake there to the left.

After checking out of the hotel, we headed right down the road to the Historic Mill Creek Discovery Park. We had a great time there exploring the park, zip-lining and walking across a rope bridge. Here are a few pictures of our time there that morning.

This saw mill is still working today.

Inside the beautiful park.

Jake and I after just crossing the rope bridge.

Where we zip-lined. Which was super fun by the way!

This was a demonstration on how they used to saw wood a long time ago, before there were mills.

 

This was a demonstration on how the saw mill works to cut wood.

The saw mill using water to saw the wood.

There was an observation tower at the park and here are a few pictures taken from the top of the tower:

This is of the Mackinac Bridge.

This is of Mackinac Island.

And this is looking straight down from the tower.

After visiting the Mill Creek Discovery Park, we headed back to Mackinaw City to take a trip over the bridge. The Mackinac Bridge connects the lower portion of Michigan to its Upper Peninsula (or U.P. as they call it in Michigan). Its the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere, reaching 5 miles long. Its the 3rd longest suspension bridge in the world.

This is a toll bridge, so we had to pay $4 to cross it into the upper peninsula, and then $4 more to come back to Mackinaw City.

Some sites while in St. Ignace (the town you end up in when you cross the bridge into the U.P.)

After a little drive around St. Ignace, we headed back to Mackinaw City for lunch and then to take the ferry over to Mackinac Island for the remainder of the week.

On the way back over into Mackinaw City, we saw the Fort that sits right on the water there. We didn't have time to go visit this Fort, unfortunately.

After coming back over to Mackinaw City, we stopped and ate here.

Then we headed over to board the ferry to take us over to Mackinac Island for the remainder of the week!

Here Jake and I are, on the ferry.

A picture of the Mackinac Bridge, taken while we were on the ferry.

Getting closer to Mackinac Island. You can make out The Grand Hotel... the big white building in the middle.

A closer picture of The Grand Hotel. We didn't stay here, because its super fancy and expensive, but maybe one day we'll be able to stay... even if its only for one night.

There are 2 lighthouses that sit directly across from each other to bring you through between Mackinac Island and Round Island. This is Round Island Lighthouse. It sits on Round Island, which is right next to Mackinac Island. The whole island is a nature preserve and has nothing on it but this lighthouse.

This is the lighthouse for Mackinac Island.

This is a picture I took later in the week, of the 2 lighthouses. Just thought I'd share so you can see their distance apart and how they help ships come between the 2 islands. Some pretty big freighters come through there, I'll have more on that later.

Fort Mackinac, sitting high upon a hill, overlooking Main Street.

A beautiful view of the island from the ferry.

Once we arrived on the Island, we took a taxi (horse and carriage) up to our hotel (The Inn at Stonecliffe). We stayed there for the first two nights on the island.

Main Street when we first arrived.

What a typical taxi/shuttle looks like on the island, since there are no automobiles allowed on the island.

The two horses that took us to our hotel.

We had a few stops along the way, one was at the little airport on the island.

Then we finally made it to our hotel.

This is the front of the Inn at Stonecliffe.  This used to be a home, but is now a hotel with a building next door that has several rooms as well.

The front yard at the Inn at Stonecliffe.

This little path takes you over to the Summer House, which is where our room was.

The entrance to the Summer House.

The back of the Summer House. I don't remember which balcony was ours, but I believe we were on the top floor.

This was our room and view from our balcony at the Inn at Stonecliffe.

Once we got settled into our room, we got ready to go have dinner in the dining room in the main house. We each had a 5 course dinner, starting with a chicken/shrimp pate, Lobster Bisque Soup, A Caesar Salad, I had White Fish and Jake had a Steak for our main course and then I had Creme Brulee for desert and Jake had a raspberry cheesecake.

Jake and I at dinner. The woman that took our picture cut Jake's head off, LOL.

My creme brulee.

Jake's raspberry cheesecake.

The dining room inside the Main House.

After dinner we went back to our room to change into some comfy clothes and went for a walk on the trails behind the hotel. While walking along the trail, we found these stairs that led to an overlook of Lake Huron.

 Jake and I up on the overlook.

After our walk, we went and sat in some of the chairs they had sitting out in the back courtyard of the hotel and watched the sun set.

After the sunset, we went back up to our room and had a glass of wine on our balcony and then headed to bed. It was a great start to our week on Mackinac Island.

I'll post day three tomorrow. I know there are a lot of pictures. I hope you're enjoying them. ☺

I'm linking up with Emily at Embrace the Camera this week!

We have a WALKER people!!

Before we left on our anniversary trip, I told Jackson the one thing he couldn't do while we were gone is start walking! Well wouldn't you know it, thats exactly what he did... the day after we left!!

I was really kind of joking when I said this, because I never dreamed in a million years that it would actually happen. He wasn't even letting go and standing on his own, much less taking anymore than a random step once or twice.  Not to mention he's only 8 months old!!

When we got back to St. Louis and stopped to pick up Jackson, of course I was super excited to see him. After many hugs and kisses, I put him down and much to my surprise, he let go of my leg and started walking!!! My mom was keeping it a secret because she knew I didn't want him to walk while we were gone. I wanted to be there when he took his first few steps. She wanted me to see it for myself before saying anything. Needless to say, I was stunned!

Here is a picture and a little video.

While its safe to say I'm super proud of him for walking at such a young age, I am a little sad that I wasn't here to see him walk for the first time. But I'll get over it. ☺ 

I just hope he's not like this with everything he does down the road, meaning, I specifically told him not to walk while we were gone and he did exactly what I told him not to do!! Little stinker! ☺

Day One of our 5 Year Anniversary Trip

First let me start by saying, we had an amazing time on our trip to Mackinaw City/Mackinac Island, Michigan! 

As I'm sure you know by now, I am a picture-a-holic and I took a ton of pictures on our trip. So to kind of space them all out for you, I thought I'd do a post a day of each of the days of our trip. 

The first day was mostly spent driving, but I took a few pictures along the drive and then some once we got into Mackinaw City.

The morning we left (Sat. July 7th), we woke up very early, around 5 a.m., to get ready to leave. We packed most of our stuff the 2 nights before so we'd be ready that morning. We also had to pack all of Jackson's stuff because he was spending the week with my parents. So after getting ready, we drove Jackson to my parent's house to drop him off and we were on the road by around 7 a.m. Here are a few pictures along the drive to Michigan.

A bunch of wind mills in Illinois.

Passing into Indiana.

Passing into Michigan.

We stopped at a little beach town in Michigan for lunch. (St. Joseph, MI) This is a picture of a canal going into lake Michigan.

This was the restaurant we ate lunch at in St. Joseph. It was very good and it was perfect weather for sitting out on their patio and looking at the beautiful Lake Michigan.

This was our view from the patio at lunch.

After lunch, we headed back to the highway, but first we stopped and waited for a few sail boats to go under this bridge.

Driving through Grand Rapids, MI.

Once we got into Northern, MI we saw several of these interesting looking trees.

After about 11 hours of driving and about an hour stop for lunch, we arrived in Mackinaw City, MI, where we were staying for the night. You can see the Mackinac Bridge in the background! Much more on that bridge to come later. ☺

This is a picture of the back of the hotel that we stayed in, while we were in Mackinaw City for the night. It sat right on the beach of Lake Huron. It was a great view. Our room was the balcony on the far right, 2nd floor.

Jake standing out on the balcony taking in the view.

The view from our balcony.

Jake and I in Lake Huron at the beach at our hotel in Mackinaw City, MI.

After checking into our hotel for the night, we drove up the road to the cute little town of Mackinaw City.

The streets were lined with these cute little shops and restaurants.

We found this little "mall" type area and went in there to check it out.

It was really cute. In fact, Mackinaw City, MI could be a vacation by itself.

The night we were there, they were doing a dog show. Of course, being the dog lovers that we are, we had to stop and watch.

And being the yellow lab lovers that we are, we cheered on this cute yellow lab. Here he is playing dead!

Some of the dogs waiting to go out and perform. They all did a great job.

After the dog show, we had dinner at this restaurant. It was very yummy pizza.

Inside the restaurant, was a Mackinac Bridge Museum. Which was very interesting to see.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel. We sat out by the water and looked at all the stars. It was so nice to just sit back and relax.

I will post about the 2nd day of our trip tomorrow! ☺