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:: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 ::
Vacation: Mackinaw City MI ** There is no Lat Longitude currently as I am sitting in the lobby w/o the GPS running**
I left Holland MI about 11am or so and headed south slightly to Douglas/Saugatauk. there is an old great lakes passenger ferry there. And go figure it was closed for the season. I got some shots of the exterior which was quite cool, but not exactly what I was hoping for.
I headed back up to Holland up the HWY 31 and checked out the huge dutch windmill there. that too was closed for the season (sensing a trend here folks?) but this time I decided to drive in the "staff only" entrance to the Windmill Island and check it out. I got some good shots, but they are still on the camera in the room... I also kept running into this very attractive jogger with her dog. She was blond and wearing michigan state sweats. All I could think was that she would be a good model. :) But I let her be and went on my way.
The mission today was to simply head North on the west side of Michigan, stopping here n there for photos. And I accomplished this for the most part, but the drab weather made getting fall colour shots pointless.
My next stop (I had a banana for breakfast) was to go to the USS Silversides. A WWII pac fleet deisel sub part of the pacific Great lakes naval museum in Muskegon. Was pretty cool. I got some exterior shots of it from the dock and a hedgehog launcher (something pretty much only my brother would like).
I had intended on dropping in at a couple of other places but I found that the distance geography was not in my favour and I underestimated how long detours were going to take. So I pressed on and stopped next (insert a couple of leg stretches n pee breaks due to bad coffee) in Frankfort, waaay up the coast. No wait, I did stop briefly somewhere else first in Manistee where there was a cool semi abandoned roll on rail ferry of some sort - also closed for the season ...
Anyhow, near frankfort, there was supposed to be this lighthouse. And after a drive through some dunes I came across a mid 1940s looking building with functioning lighthouse. I got some shots and then beat feet as the rain was coming in... It held off for a bit, long enough to have the most enjoyable drive around Crystal Lake. windy roads, nice looking cottages and so on. Great fall colours too - except for the overcast would be great for pics...
I stopped in Traverse City (they name a lot of places here with city...) and ate some extra greasy Wendy's and fired up the GPS... It was going to be dark well before I got to the hotel and I figured having a co pilot would be beneficial. Not half way out of the city did it start raining. And traffic slowed to a stop. Literally. I called AW on the phone and chatted with her for a bit on a crap connection. Call back was much better. I think that the 50 mile conversation is going to be a pretty penny when I get back, but having the company during the slow traffic and after as I made my way North was good. Made the day infact.
I get to the Comfort Inn Lakeside in Mackninac City (yep another City) around 930. check in to the swank room with a beach access balcony and a huge hot tub and fire up the wifi. Except the signal is so piss poor that it is barely in the yellow. 1megabit if i was lucky. tracerouting out proved it was ok, it was just not even good enough to check my email without it dropping. So here I sit in the hotel lobby. In the interim - it is about 1130pm, I watched CSI NY which had a suicide girls themed episode with a couple of real SG's I recognized - Nixon for one. Was cool. :)
Anyhow, I am going to take the laptop back to the dead zone and look into moving some pics. I might do this again in the morning briefly to check email and so on, but it is a touch of a nuisance.
Plan for tomorrow is to drive south down the Lake Huron side after checking out the area. the bridge is huuuuge!!! though I bet if I shoot pics the DHS folks will be on my ass.
Mike
Carpe Diem
:: Mike Wood 23:27 [+] ::
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