St. Ignace

We could have reached some of the National Parks we planned to visit, such as Theodore Roosevelt and Yellowstone, a lot earlier than we did.  The main reason we did not is that we took a detour northward to St. Ignace, Michigan, to attend a rally of Mini Coopers called “Mini on the Mack.”  Organizers of the annual event hoped to break the English-held world record this year for the largest-ever MINI Cooper parade, crossing the iconic Mackinac Bridge.  We had crossed the bridge on our 2016 trip (“Mini Takes the States”), but we wanted to do it again and to meet up with hundreds of other “Mini-acs.”

 

So instead of heading due west from Indiana Dunes, we went north, 350 miles through Michigan on pleasant two-lane roads along Lake Michigan.  It was an interesting slice of America as we passed through small towns and past peculiar sights, such as this one outside a diner somewhere north of Grand Rapids. 

 

We began to see slender white-trunked aspen trees, which reminded me of the white birches in Vermont, and blue spruce.  There was a sign for Saginaw, and it reminded me of that Paul Simon song that had also been playing in the back of my mind since this trip began, about two young lovers marrying their fortunes together

"Kathy", I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America.

There were signs for snowmobile crossings, too, a reminder that this part of the country gets a great deal of snow.  On our 2016 trip, we had toured a snowmobile museum somewhere in this part of the country.  We were also seeing more and more Mini Coopers on the road as we neared St. Ignace.

Finally, we arrived at Mackinaw City and drove onto the Mackinac Bridge.  It is a peculiar word, spelled two different ways but pronounced the same – “mack-in-awe” – and the reason is that it is a shortened version of the Native American name, Michilimackinac, meaning place of the great turtle (they thought the limestone bluffs of Mackinac Island looked like a giant turtle rising out of the water).  When present-day Mackinaw City was founded in the 1850s, the British changed the spelling of the city to reflect the way the name is pronounced, with a “w” sound at the end.

 

However it is pronounced, the bridge is an engineering marvel, dwarfing the 3030-foot New River Gorge Bridge we had seen three days ago.  This bridge spans open water from the lower to the upper peninsula (‘the “U-P”) and is 26,372 feet long, just a little short of five miles.  It was opened in 1957 and at the time was the longest suspension bridge in the world (it is now the fifth).  For those who are interested, there is an interesting YouTube documentary on its construction called “Building the Mighty Mac.” 

 

 
We checked in at Little Bear Arena, which we remembered from our 2016 trip, to pick up our packet and found ourselves amongst hundreds of other Minis, no two alike, and many of them decked out for this event.  We met several folks, such as Jeff from Greenville, who had been at the gathering of Minis at Fontana Dam in May called “Mini on the Dragon,” where we had driven in small groups on the famous “Tail of the Dragon” and Cherohala Skyway.  We enjoyed looking at the cars and meeting other owners most of the afternoon.  In a lot of ways it was like picking up race packets at a marathon or other big race, mingling with the other runners, getting ready for the exciting day ahead.

We had dinner at the Mackinac Grille, and then drove to Castle Rock, a limestone rock formation three miles north of St. Ignace.

There we climbed the 170 steps to its summit – that was good exercise! – before checking in to the Holiday Inn, right on the shore of Lake Huron and reminiscent of oceanfront hotels where we have stayed over the years.  Very nice! – Martha has outdone herself in finding good places to stay.  Our overall mileage by the end of the day was 1,325,