Blueberry Fields Forever

In the morning, we woke up well rested and headed north to Mackinac Island for the day! We crossed the bridge easily, hardly any wind at all, and bought ferry tickets to the island in St. Ignace for the 10:30 a.m. departure. We got to Mackinac around 11 a.m. and headed straight for the newly built butterfly house, Wings of Mackinac, which is about a mile off main street and usually frequented by bikers and carriage riders. The butterfly house was huge for a butterfly house and reportedly

had about 1000 butterflies in it! There were so many there that you had to watch your step so you wouldn't crush them as you walked. I even had a butterfly land on my shirt as I was walking! Katie almost had one land on her hand, but she freaked out as if it were a bee attacking, and it flew away instead. We walked around the house 3 times until Katie was satisfied enough to leave, though she said she could have spent the whole day there. From there we walked past the Grand Hotel, where we learned proper attire was a suit and tie after 6 p.m., and back toward Main Street in search of a place to eat lunch and grab a drink. We ended up at the Pink Pony, in honor of Jimbo, on the

lower deck patio facing the water. We shared an appetizer and a couple drinks as we waited for our ferry to arrive to take us back to the UP. Before we left the island we did some fudge shopping! Katie and I ended up getting 2 kinds of fudge each, which ended up being a half pound each, making one whole pound of fudge which we would eat between the two of us over the next couple days! When we got back to the car, we made reservations at the Lower Tahquamenon Falls state park for the night. As we arrived, our neighbor came over to greet us, rather

there dog did, and the neighbors came to claim her. We talked a little bit and she told us that the blueberries were in season and there was tons of berries just steps from our camp! Immediately Katie and I grabbed a bag and went picking blueberries and collecting fire wood. About 5 minutes into our excursion, we realized we made a horrible mistake! In our haste to berries, we completely forgot bug spray and we paid dearly for it. However, just like the bear who gets stung while picking honey, we too came away with our prize and were awarded a nice snack before we set out on our evening hike. After we set up camp, we decided to go to the lower falls to look at them and possibly find a hike for tomorrow. We got there around 8 p.m. and the place was pretty much empty. We walked and saw the

falls at our leisure, but didn't venture too far off the board walk. We decided we would come back the next day and make the 4 mile hike to the Upper Falls. We got back to our camp around dusk, made a fire and cooked pizza puffs for dinner. We enjoyed the rest of the night along the river, by the fire until we went to bed.