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Sunday, August 8
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We woke up to a cloudy, rainy Sunday morning on Mackinac Island. I took my cup of coffee to the second floor balcony (near our room) and watched the happenings down on the street. It was fairly quiet but there were a few people and carriages. This carriage appears to be taking passengers to or from a ferry.
After visiting with a mother and daughter who were enjoying a day on the island, I went back to our motel room to finish my coffee as we listened to our Sunday school class via our cell phones. After two weeks on the road, it was good to hear our teacher, the comments and announcements. We listened to the opening of our church service, as we began preparing to leave the island.
In this photo, I was looking back toward our motel, the dock and other buildings as our ferry pulled away from this delightful island.
The Mackinac Bridge came into view as we approached Mackinaw City.
We found departure from Shepler’s Ferry as smooth as our arrival.
One thing that worked well for us was, when taking our piece of luggage toward the ferry, I told an attendant that I had a piece of luggage for the porter. She said I will tell someone. No one ever came for it, so we continued to the ferry. A porter saw it and said, “Carry-on” goes over there.” So we put it there. When we left we picked it up and were on our way – not having to go to the luggage tent to claim our suitcase. 🙂
A shuttle van was soon there to take us to our car – and we were on our way to Alpena, Michigan, where we had a motel reserved for the evening.
Rain continued as we traveled south on the Lake Huron side of Michigan. I used my cell phone to locate a restaurant when we were ready for lunch. I thought this looked interesting as it was located on the lake.
Shortly after we got to our table, it began pouring. It was nice to be inside. 🙂
It looked like a miserable day to be out on Lake Huron with a sailboat.
Heavy rain continued throughout our meal.
Cerwin ordered pork chili.
My choice for lunch was walleye and potato chips. I could have chosen tater tots or French fries, but didn’t think I was hungry enough for those, and it is much easier for me to let chips behind. However, these were the best potato chips I have ever eaten and asked for a take-home box.
When I told the waitress why I wanted to take them along, she said, “They are the best because the owner is a potato farmer and these are made fresh every morning.”
Though our vacation was now officially over and we were just traveling home at this point, I purposed to enjoy every bit of scenery – even on a rainy afternoon.
We arrived at our motel, Big Bear Lodge, in the late afternoon. The weather had cleared by this time.
The motel was indeed a friendly mom and pop lodge. As we talked to “mom and pop” I was fascinated by their strong South African accent. After I asked about it, she told me that they were from Johannesburg and had an interesting God story of their movement to the United States.
It was fun to be able to tell them that we had flown into Johannesburg in 2018 when we visited Cape Town, then went to Hoedspruit for our hunting and safari experiences. They even knew about the tiny airport in Hoedspruit.
I told her that we had time to hear the story, because I love God stories. To shorten it: when they decided to come here, they had a problem, because they could not locate her “real” birth certificate. Their deadline was just twelve hours away when it was located by officials. They landed in Texas, purchased a motorhome and drove around the country looking for a motel for purchase. They both knew this was the one they wanted when seeing it after leaving the Big Boy Restaurant just a block away.
Our room was fairly small, but quite homey. Being here felt right and comfortable after knowing the owner’s God story.
The pictures on the wall reminded us of South Africa – especially our three-day visit to Krueger National Park.
After getting settled into our room, we decided to get back in the car and look for ice cream. We ended up getting hot fudge sundaes at a McDonald’s drive-through. My leftover potato chips went well with that. 🙂