We watched a couple more freighters in the morning before we left Sault Ste. Marie.
And then we headed south. We crossed the Mackinaw Straits Bridge with its $10 toll and hugged the coast of Lake Huron mostly on US23. This area is called the "Sunrise Side" of Michigan. We caught a few glimpses of the lake, but mostly we were a bit inland. After 151 miles we were in our site at Campers Cove in Alpena, Michigan.
A gull with a small turtle it was trying to figure out how to eat:
We had a view of the lake out front.
We drove the car into town and found a bakery for some nice bread since we were about out of bread.
Photos of birds in the campground on September 11th
September 11th we headed south mostly on US23 and we did see much more of Lake Huron than further north.
Here is our lunch spot:
With the lake right in view:
Views at the beach:
Video of Lake Huron (WMV 1.46MB)
Later on we camped at Saginaw Bay Resort in Standish, Michigan. We had driven 114 miles.
We were staying for three nights and two days.
We found the cheese places in Pinconning and Linwood, Michigan that we had found in 2003. The best place for cheese is Williams Cheese in Linwood, since they have an outlet store and make their own cheese. Really nice cheese and they have some great deals at the outlet store including some cheeses at $1.88/lb.
One day we drove down to Bay City and Saginaw, having lunch at Chili's. We could really see how badly these cities were faring since they depended on the auto companies.
The other day we drove back up US23 to Tawas City.
We had lunch here and it was quite good. We also thought it interesting that wifi was more important than breakfast.
We had now explored more of Michigan and were ready to head into Ohio.