A mini-adventure, Part 1

This past weekend we went up to Northern Michigan for a mini-break. I booked us rooms at a hotel in Mackinaw City, at the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula.  This is the point where the Mackinaw Bridge connects the Lower Peninsula to the Northern Peninsula (known as the U.P. to us locals). If you research it online, you will find the Mackinaw Bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the Western hemisphere – or the third longest, depending on which way they measure it. It is five miles across the point where Lake Michigan meets Lake Huron.

It was a beautiful day for our drive up, which took around four hours. Bright blue skies hung over the deep greens of the pines, burgundy maple leaves and soft yellows of the birch trees. Dusk was approaching as we neared the top of the mitten and as we came over the rise near the coast we could saw a wall of fog hanging over the water obscuring our view of the lakes and bridge. We descended into the fog and town and made our way to the hotel. Our balcony afforded us the perfect view of the straits and the bridge which eventually appeared as the winds blew the bank of fog to the east.

After dinner we drove out to the International Dark Sky Park. It was a beautiful night and the stars were almost close enough to touch. It is weird how just sitting in a car when you travel can be so exhausting, and even though the bed was a slab of concrete, I slept deeply.

When I awoke in the morning I sat out on the balcony drinking my coffee and, watching the ferry boats carry tourists back and forth to Mackinaw Island, I was reminded of Istanbul. The parallels between these two places are almost surreal. Both have huge beautiful bridges over busy bodies of water and dozens of ferry boats which take people to islands where motorized vehicles are prohibited, where tourists get around on bikes or in horse-drawn carriages. In one place minarets pierce the sky, in the other it is steeples, lighthouses and wind turbines. In one place there are millions of people using the ferries to get to work each day, while in the other they carry mostly tourists. In one place the centuries of history of the spice trade waft through the light breezes, in the other, a wooden fort stands against the harsh Chinook winds. Both places have huge ships passing beneath their bridges on their journeys to supply the world, but in Mackinaw the ferries are quiet and modern and don’t puff out black smoke which then settles as soot on the window sills. The relatively new and the relatively old… so many similarities and differences, on opposite sides of the world.

More on our adventure will follow…