8/8 - Tour de Mackinac

Today was one of the more tiring days of the trip (for me anyway). We biked an average of 24 miles each (the boys went around the island one more time than my parents and I). That may not seem like a ton, but most of us were riding on bad bikes that either had no gears to change, or wouldn't change gears dependably. That made the hills quite difficult, especially for my mom and Noah. Before I say any more about the day, here is what we did:

As you can see from what we did, my family decided to build a huge rock stack. We'd seen a lot of small ones on our way around the island and we thought it would be a fun way to make a memory without spending money. Here are a few images from our building the stack and the finished product:

Sadly, I let my dad convince me that I should only bring one lens for my camera, so I only took my fish-eye lens. That meant that, since I'm not very good at using it yet, I didn't get the best pictures. Here was my lame attempt at a photo of the Arch Rock:

When we biked up to Sugar Loaf, my pictures turned out a lot better. Nathan made us a little nervous by climbing up to the very top. If you click on the images, you can see them larger, so look for Nathan at the very top of the rock. It was a pretty crazy climb:

Now, we rented a tandem bike for my mom and Noah to use, which forced me into riding Noah's bike (my old bike), which was really bad and the seat was adjusted to be way too short for me. So, after riding on it most of the time, I took his place on the tandem bike. It was a whole lot of fun. I even got a few photos of the experience using my mom's camera:

When we visited the fort, we just barely missed a canon firing demonstration. However, we did get to hear some music and singing, which was alright. Then we walked around some buildings that were pretty much identical to buildings at other old forts we've been to. So I won't bore you with the photos from them. Instead, here is a photo of my brother, Noah, and I dressed up as union soldiers (sorry, they didn't have rebel costumes):

While the boys took another ride around the island, my parents and I took the opportunity to visit the Grand Hotel. The grounds were really pretty and the building was very impressive. We weren't actually supposed to be able to walk around the grounds or inside, but we found a way in through the garden. It wasn't roped off or anything, so we took a few pictures and went inside to see the fancy interior. Most of the people were really dressed up, but no one caught on to the fact that we weren't supposed to be there. Here's a photo of my parents in front of the Grand Hotel:

We were very tired and footsore when we finally got back to our campsite in Mackinaw City. Our original plan had been to take the 9 o'clock ferry back in order to catch the sunset behind the bridge, but we were way too tired to stay that long. So, you can thank our tired feet for being able to read this blog post. If we'd gotten back that late, I wouldn't have had the energy to write a post. At any rate, it was a good day, and tomorrow we'll be packing up early to leave for another campsite.

I likely won't be able to blog again until I'm back home, so until then, pray that we don't kill each other or have any problems in traveling.