We spent 5 days in Northern Michigan.
Day 1: Travel in Charlevoix
We traveled to Northern Michigan for a fun long Independence Day Weekend. Our first day was filled with driving the 7 hours up north. We stopped at Culver's for lunch and arrived in Charlevoix around 4 pm. We checked into our house and ate a quick dinner of grilled chicken. We then headed to walk through town and ended up at the beach near sunset. We waded into the water, looked at the lighthouse, and looked for pretty rocks on the beach.
Day 2: Mackinac Island
We got up early and made the 45 minute drive to Mackinaw City to take Shepeler's ferry across to Mackinac Island. We arrived at around 9 am and rented bikes. There are plenty of great places to rent bikes from and one isn't really better than the other. We almost made it out of downtown when Edmund's chain kept falling off, so Eric quickly walked it back to the bike shop to get it changed out. He rode it back and we were on our way. We biked to Arch Rock and climbed the steps to the top. We stopped at the welcome center near the top and hiked back down to our bikes. We rode the M-185 around the island. We stopped along different beaches and skipped stones and splashed in the water along Lake Huron. We made it back to town and returned our bikes. Edmund wiped out right before town trying to drink out of his water bottle while biking. We ended up with a scraped on his leg, but was otherwise okay. We went out to lunch and walked around. Emmalyn bought a fox and a turtle and Clara purchased a necklace. Edmund also ended up purchased a stuffed animal. I tried to talk them into touring Fort Mackinac but the kids didn't want to. We then walked through the state park and into the interior of the island. We then made our way towards the Grand Hotel where we got ice cream. We then hiked back to the boat and returned back to the mainland. We drove back to our house where we made dinner of pasta/sauce. We then got our swimsuits on and headed out for an evening swim at Charlevoix beach before heading to bed.
Day 3: Today is Independence Day! The kids were bummed about not getting to spend the first full day at the beach. We promised them we would spend all of today at the beach. We decided to head downtown to shop and purchase candy first and headed to the beach after lunch. We stayed until dinner enjoying swimming, sunbathing, digging holes, making sand castles, and looking for petoskey stones. We returned for dinner and ate our independence birthday cake. We watched a movie - In to the Woods and then went down to the beach to watch the sunset and people shooting off Fireworks along the private beaches nearby. We then walked through town at 10 pm on our way back to the house and off to bed.
Day 4: We are having our final full day in Charlevoix. We again walked around downtown to get a few last minutes shirts and then off to the beach again. We played at lake Michigan until lunch. We finished our movie and went out to dinner along the water. We then went to Mount Mcsauba beach for sunset. The kids played in the water and we enjoyed the quiet. We then went back and worked on packing up a bit before bed.
Day 5: We spent the morning packing up and heading out of town. We enjoyed our trip and were a bit sad to head back home. It's always a treat being in Michigan.
