The final part of our trip was to Mackinaw city and Mackinaw Island. If you have never been there before you should go there. It’s wonderful and the area is so refreshing. The "city" is this nice little square with all these little shops filled with food and souvenirs. You can walk around and get coffee, food, and just enjoy the breeze coming off the lake. If you go to the water you can then take a ferry to get to Mackinaw Island which is beautiful. It’s about 8 miles all around. They only have three ways of transportation which are walking, biking, and horseback riding. They don’t allow cars on the island so the air is nice and fresh. They also have a fort that you can visit and tour. You can even go to a butterfly reserve (which you can buy the butterflies from them as well. They frame them for people to buy after the butterflies have passed away from a natural death) and a butterfly shop. There is so much rich history on the island that it can be quite the adventure to go see it all. The nice part about the island is that you can lay on the grass in front of the fort and just relax. You can hear the waves from the harbor and watch the horses and bikers go by as you take in the wonderful beauty of the water. There is no struggle on the island and everyone there is so nice. The decor and architecture is also quite beautiful and a lot of it has been remodeled due to the island being covered in snow and ice for six months out of the year. 

Back in Mackinaw City though they have a couple places you can stay. There is a state park that we go to called the Wilderness State Park. It’s about a ten minute drive to get to it since it’s basically in the forest and you have to drive down a two lane windy road to get to it. Once you arrive at the campground you check in and get to your spot and set up camp. Its honestly one of the best campground I have ever been to. Its right on the water and the air is so clean. Nobody is in any rush to go anywhere and the weather is almost always 70 degrees every time we go there. It’s so much better than the 90 degree weather with a chance of 100% humidity. Really I just take it all in and let myself soak up those rays of sunlight. It’s not every day we get wonderful weather and back home I just burn up like an egg on the sidewalk. 

This year we got to spend some time with an old friend of my Dads and she got to get to know me. She was nice and I enjoyed her company. She got to see her friend’s daughter and see how he influenced me. Really it was all about the interaction. I introduced her to my favorite person in Mackinaw City which is John from the weapons shop. He gave her so much information and probably scared her a little bit from how violent the history is behind all the weapons she was interested in knowing about. For the first time I saw a real fear in someone's eyes. She even stated that she wouldn’t mess with me, ever. It took that as a high compliment in regards that most don’t react like that but it was a nice change in pace. 

Most of our time was spent by the campfire soaking in the beauty and wonderful scenery that surrounded us. Florida is an ok place to live but Michigan in the summer is 1,000x better to me. I’m not dieing from the heat, it’s a change of scenery while also feeling like home and I can just be a part of the culture. It never gets old and I can’t wait to go back already.