August 31, 2008 (Sunday): Mackinaw City, Michigan

This morning we attended the Church of the Straits which was a combined Methodist and Presbyterian congregation. It was a delight for Tom and I to have our children with us to attend together. The pastor made a comment that from the pulpit it appeared that they had more visitors than members, but the little church was mostly full, maybe 150 people. The music included melodic organ as well as a local men’s chorus. The North Men were nine singers in deep red shirts and black pants, whose hymns were beautiful.

After church, we took Brian to the Mackinaw Outfitters shop to browse through the sportman’s supplies and to name the live fish in their huge aquarium. There were large and small mouth bass, rainbow trout and yellow perch; all swimming over and under a log to inspire the fishermen. We also wondered through a store with baby clothes just for fun, then wound up at the Dixie Saloon for lunch. The Dixie Saloon is a huge two story restaurant built from massive golden blond timbers.

This afternoon we took the boat out under the Mackinaw Bridge to the tiny Helena Island. We anchored out and went swimming in the clear emerald water to a shore line covered with smooth stones. We spent a while in the shallows having fun trying to identify the rock formations and gathered up a collection to take home. Our family has a long history of making rocks our souvenirs. Ben had floated over to the island in an inflatable raft, and we used it to transport our rocks back to the boat. Our rock collection included a 50 pound black stone of hornblende that we ladies managed to get into the raft and half way back to the boat before Tom came in the dinghy to help us.

Then we moved The Next Thirty Years to the point where we could see the Helena Light house. We anchored there and took the dinghy up to the shore and had fun exploring around the well kept historic sight. This area had been the grateful recipient of a lot of care from local Boy Scout troops and Eagle Service projects. Their had originally been a small fishing village there and the light house was manned to show the passage through the straits of Mackinaw before electronic lighthouses made them unnecessary.

Returning to the Mackinaw City marina, we grilled steaks out accompanied by fresh Michigan corn on the cob. It was very interesting to us that the corn crop was just coming in now while our NC crop would be finished by September. I think we will sleep well tonight.