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!