Thursday, May 30, 2024

The Mighty Mac

We left from Munising on Tuesday, May 14th, headed to Mackinaw City, Michigan, for two nights.  To get between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, most folks cross the Mackinac Bridge - affectionately called the Mighty Mac. 

Approaching from the north, we drove along the shoreline of Lake Michigan and stopped for a few pictures.  You can see the prevalence of the midges in the pictures - just unavoidable at this time of year.  I just resigned myself to them being in all my pictures near the water, much like if you're in Rome, you'll never get a picture of the Colosseum without tourists.

Roadside Rest Stop on northern Lake Michigan

Vista View over Lake Michigan

I walked on the beach at Lake Michigan. 

The water reminds me of the Forgotten Coast on a calm day.

We drove into St. Ignace where we stopped at the Bridge View Park for our first glimpse of the Mackinac Bridge.  There is a nice visitor center there (indoors, so no midges!) that has information about the building of the bridge.  We spent some time reading about the bridge and its history.

This is the bell from the south tower of the bridge before they installed the fog horns.

Our first view of the Bridge


Information about the bridge is inside the Visitor Center at Bridge View Park


We had our Michigan state park pass, so we also went to Straits State Park which offers views of the bridge from the Lake Huron side.

View of the bridge from Straits State Park in St. Ignace.

To cross the Mighty Mac, there is a $4 toll, and then you're off!  They are doing some lane maintenance on the bridge so the lanes were a little more nerve-wracking than they might ordinarily be.  We had someone tell us that you can pay someone to drive your vehicle across the bridge if you're nervous about it.  DH doesn't mind driving on bridges, and that kept me free to take some pictures.

Toll area

Crossing from north to south

Once we were on the other side, e headed to Colonial Michilimackinac where we were able to get a different view of the bridge from the southern side.

View from Colonial Michilimackinac, southern side

Have you been across the Mighty Mac before?

~ Cindy D.

2 comments:

  1. Someday you should come back for the Labor Day Bridge Walk. No cars - just people walking from one side to the other!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I saw that! I saw that they have several options for people, like walking half way and then going back, or just walking the whole way across. That must be something to see!

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