The Tin in Mackinaw, Pt. II

(Contd.)

We arrived to colonial Fort Michilimackinac about five minutes before Fort Fright started.  Since we had already purchased our tickets ahead of time (while we taking pictures of the lighthouse and bridge - and questing for my poster - earlier), we got to jump into the shorter, pre-paid line.  After a few minutes of waiting, they started letting people in, so our timing was just about perfect.

Unfortunately, the weather was not.  It was super windy, so despite the fact that it wasn't necessarily cold out, the wind cut through your outer layers like nobody's business.  It was a very, very unpleasant trek from the visitor's center to the fort. . .

Our regiment of elderly tourists marches on Michilimackinac

Don't feed the Hessians.

Some French Fur Trader (personally, I found it far too cold out for a history lesson. . . and I'm a frickin' history teacher.)

Approaching the outer palisade 

Zombies and Regulars at the front gate

Anybody lose a canoe ? (You have NO idea how badly I wanted to crawl under this thing for warmth. . .)

Opening the gate for our horde of tourists (we were among the first ones into the fort.)

Hey, cool name, Peyster.

Okay, so I don't really know what any of this buildings are off the top of my head, so you're not going to get a lot of historical description throughout this particular blog post, you have my apologies (again, history teacher.)  I mean, they did give us a map with all the building names on it, but I don't have it in front of me at the moment.

This lady just walked continual laps along the parapet of the wall.  I think she was supposed to be a ghost bride or something.  As cold as it felt, and as crazy as the wind was, there was no way in hell you could have paid me enough money to do this.

Some pretty high-tech scaring going on in Colonial Michilimackinac. . .

Okay, so I do remember this one - it's a church.  Built on top of the original.  Bunch of dead bodies found buried underneath it. . . or something.  I don't know, we walked in because it was warm and we needed a break from the wind.

They fly the Union Jack over the fort, as it was primarily under British control for most of its existence (or so I'm led to believe.)

This dude in the red hat was spinning tales about French werewolves in the fur trade.  Seriously.

You guys ever see that hood movies from the '90s, Dead Presidents?

There aren't any bathrooms in the fort (not a lot of indoor plumbing in the 1700s, people), so at one point in time Kris and I walked back towards the Visitor's Center to use los servicos.  The clouds had cleared up just enough to give us some pretty bad-ass photo ops. . .

Restrooms

This is actually Kris' real resting face.

Back in the Fort

Captain of the 8th Regulars - and his creepy zombie homeboy - still manning the front gates

Inside one of the officer's quarters

How creepy would this be if these ladies were ghosts?

Checking out the map/itinerary of the fort's attractions, trying to stay warm

There was a long line outside this random building, so being sheep Kris and I decided 'it was legit,' and hopped on in.  It ended up being a not-at-all scary 'haunted house,' but at least it was warm inside.

Heading back to the van, after a cold and windy evening in Fort Michilimackinac

A second attempt with my phone instead of the SLR (taking night shots without a tripod frickin' sucks. . .)

Back in the hotel, with the Great Prize of the weekend.  We ended up picking up a few souvenirs in Mackinaw City, but this one was, by far, my favorite. 

The next morning, one last look out at Lake Michigan and/or Huron before packing up for our indirect drive south back to Midland

Kris and I detoured slightly on our way back south, taking the famous Tunnel of Trees (along M-119, shown here), which is considered one of the most scenic drives in all of Michigan.  Unfortunately, while it was still a very beautiful drive through the country, it was still a little too early in the fall for my liking:  I could have done with less green and more fall-ish colors in the foliage.  Two more weeks and it would have been about perfect.

- Brian

The Tin in Mackinaw, Pt. I

Halloween 1998

They say the Tenth Anniversary has something to do with 'tin.'

I don't why that is.  Maybe 'cause 'tin' sorta resembles 'ten.'  Whoever came up with this really didn't feel like putting too much creativity in it, did they.


Anyway, Kris and I have now been married for ten years, which is kinda weird to think about.  Before that we had about four years of dating under our belts, going all the way back to 1998, so more or less we've had to deal with one another's bullshit for nearly half our lives.

Our hotel in Mackinaw City

For the last eight of these years, we've had to live in varying degrees of servitude towards miniature humans, and have had to put up with their neverending bullshit.  Taking this into consideration, we decided to treat ourselves to a kid-free weekend away from our offspring to mark the special occasion, and rented a nice hotel room in Mackinaw City.  Dropping the kids off at Mom's, we left Thursday after work (our official anniversary date, October 7th, fell on a Friday this year, so we both took that day off of work), and made the three-hour drive north towards the old colonial city.

Check it out. . .

Our hotel room.  We got a king-size suite with a lake view and a hot tub (not cheap, but it's an anniversary so we splurged.)  We didn't get up there until nearly 9pm, so we more or less just unpacked our stuff in the room, took a five minute walk down the street, came back to the hotel, and enjoyed the hot tub.

What was cool about this setup was that we could turn the TV to the hot tub and watch from the bubbling awesomeness.  I wish I had this setup in our house in Midland.

These chairs didn't get a lot of use, nor did the couch (kinda hard to compete with the king-size bed and the hot tub.) 

The upstairs dining room, where we'd be having our continental breakfast the following morning.  I had to use the microwave up there to pop some popcorn for us, and when I went in there, the entire room was more or less dark except for a single light over a single table, around which four, super-old ladies were quietly sitting and doing. . . NOTHING.  Seriously, nothing.  Just sitting there and not talking.  In a large, dark room at 10pm.  I walked in, they turned and looked at me without saying a word and stared after me until I walked around the corner to the microwave.  It was the longest popping of a bag of a popcorn in my entire life, and I'm pretty sure those old ladies were ghosts.

The next morning, admiring the view from our hotel room porch (we were ground level.)

(I love taking pictures of people taking pictures of people.)

The day's first shuttle to Mackinaw Island

Later on in the morning, following our complimentary breakfast, we came back out on the porch for a coffee

Kris makes a friend

On our way out of the hotel, heading into town for some souvenir shopping downtown.  This is the front entrance to the hotel - I really like these bookcases - it'd be cool to have something like this in our next house (obviously lower to the ground.)

Another shot of the hotel entryway

These dudes working this crane were really rocking out - blasting hard rock at a ridiculous volume, especially for 9am.  Considering how close they were to patrons' room windows, I'd be surprised if they didn't have the cops called on them by lunchtime.

The Hamilton

I love me some History. . .

Boats

Souvenir shops.  Kind of a big thing around these parts, by the looks of things.

Mackinaw Crossings

This guy's mullet was exquisite.

This little Dutch kid snags himself a Leviathan.

Old people selfie.

Who placed these artillery pieces?  I can't imagine these serve a rational part in the town's defenses. . .

Another marina we wouldn't be frequenting:  we opted to stay on the mainland for this trip.

Downtown shopping district.  See that Keyhole Bar & Grill off to the right, there?  That's where we'd end up having Lunch for the day. . . and Dinner.

A pretty morbid sign, listing all the people who died constructing the Mackinac Bridge.

We walked around for a couple hours, ducking in and out of shops, but we didn't really see much that caught our fancy.

. . . except this.  These posters were in the window of nearly every store and restaurant in Mackinaw City, advertising Fort Fright: a Halloween-themed haunted attraction at Fort Michilimackinac (that we promptly decided on checking out later on in the evening.)  I wanted one of these posters really bad, for multiple reasons:  1.) The print job itself was awesome, from a design perspective, 2.) It features a colonial soldier (and drummer), 3.) It had our anniversary date (Oct. 7th) printed right on the poster, and 4.) It was a standard frame size, so it'd be easy to hang up.  Alas, while it was easy enough to find these posters hung up all over town, it was next to impossible to find anyone with extras, so I took it upon myself to devote the rest of our vacation hunting down this elusive poster. . .

Yorn desh born, der ritt de gitt der gue

Two different alehouses we didn't go into. . .

After walking around shops for awhile, Kris wanted to walk to the water - a few blocks away - to check out the Bridge.  This park - in honor of everyone's favorite Gary - had a decent view of the Mighty Mac.

The Mackinac Bridge

Marking ten divorce-less years in front of an architectural structure that's killed twenty-three people.

Mackinac Island's two most-famous structures: the Grand Hotel (left) and Fort Mackinac (right)

Another shuttle to the island

Some guy.

Some chick.

Struttin' down the ol' Historic Mackinaw Trail

Also known as The Nerd Store

(I'm voting Third Party this year.  Just sayin')

Daaaaa Bears

Kris and I were crazy enough to venture into this shit-show of a store.  After awhile, all these souvenir stores started to look the same; the only reason this one stood out was because it was so much bigger than the other stores (even if it was selling the exact same crap as all of the other places.)

Long story short, we didn't buy anything throughout the entire day up to this point.

We had a couple really good chicken wraps at the Keyhole Bar & Grill for Lunch.  Kris had done a shitload of research and discovered this local joint had the best food in town (it was pretty good.)

The local beer up here was pretty good, too.  Forgot what this one was called, but it was a decent generic-tasting Amber Ale.  Not bad, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Some candy and popcorn shop that Kris wanted to venture into.  She was in there about a half an hour, trying to decide what type of popcorn to bring back for the girls.

After trying several different samples, she ended up leaving the store without buying anything (much to the chagrin of the young clerk who was 'serving' her - she was definitely a bitch.)

The legendary Slush Puppie - I haven't seen this dude since 1989.  He used to hang out in my primary school cafeteria, and I used to sneak quarters into school so I could buy one at lunch throughout third and fourth grade.

What.  The F***.  Is this.

After taking a short break back at the hotel room, Kris and I decided to check out the town's historic lighthouse, and get some better pictures of the Mackinac Bridge (and, most importantly, to try and track down one of those ever-elusive Fort Fright posters for me - I was obsessed with my prize by this point, but Kris had my back.)

The author, in his natural environment

I bet money this shit's haunted.

Kris and Mac.

It hadn't rained all day, but the weather was definitely gloomy.

Wish you were here. . .??

Telephoto lens time

. . . and 40mm lens time

That park has my name written ALL over it.

I seriously can't take this chick anywhere. . .

On our way back to the hotel room, we ducked into this place to grab a cup of coffee (our lunch - and my beer from lunch - was making us pretty groggy, and we wanted to have our energy up for the Fort Fright attraction at the fort later.)  Upon checking out, I saw that the store had a second Fort Fright poster - the one I had been questing after - underneath their cash register.  I commented on it, and Kris chimed in about how we had been spending the entire day trying to hunt a copy down, and - lo and behold - the old woman working the register LET ME HAVE THE POSTER.  Quest COMPLETE.

Taking another break back at the hotel, watching a threatening cloud front sweep across Lake Michigan (or Huron. . . not sure which lake this is.)  We had spent the sound majority of the day walking around on sidewalks, so we were dead on our feet.  We ended up taking multiple breaks back at the hotel throughout the day.

We still had time to kill before dinner, which we were going to grab on our way to the Fort, so Kris suggested checking out this little strip of shops right across the street from our hotel.

I was all about buying a growler of beer from Mackinac Island Brewhouse, but once I found out they were based in frickin' Mount Pleasant, I decided to pass (why the hell would you name it after a place that's not a place where you're basing your company?  Was there a brewery named Mount Pleasant Brewing Co. already in existance, perhaps based in Lansing or something?)  Anyway, I passed on the beer aspect of things, but Kris wanted to try some of the local wines from the Mackinac Island Winery. . .

They had this deal where you could get five samples of wine and a FREE wine glass from the Winery for $5, which more or less equated to 1 1/2 glasses of wine and a free glass for $5.  Not a bad way to spend half an hour, if you ask me.

Following our stint at Winery, we drove back over to the Keyhole Bar & Grill for some dinner around 5:30pm.  We were short on time, seeing how the Fort Fright attraction was starting at 6:30pm, and there was a 45 minute wait to get a table at this place (it was like that everywhere, unfortunately.)  Miraculously, we were able to cut down on this wait time by sitting at the bar, our food came super quick, we ate like a couple of hobos eating a pie off a window sill in the 1930s, and our check came immediately. . . so we were in and out in about 45 minutes, which, I think, set some kind of a record for us at a nicer sit-down joint.

(to be continued. . .)

- Brian