USA Trip (12th Sep - 8th Oct) - Day 9 - Niagara Falls

Sunday (Day 9) was another big drive. One of our good friends from Sweden, Pete, had relocated to Canada just outside Toronto and we couldn't be this close without catching up with him, plus it was a great chance to see Niagara Falls again (or first time for Tara and Brett).

We arranged to meet up at the Falls and headed out early in the morning for the 4hr drive.

Our first stop was the Hershey World Chocolate shop and then Hard Rock Cafe for lunch:

Once we'd eaten we headed down to the Falls. We spent some time walking along the road above the falls and then took a boat ride on the Hornblower - the Canadian boat tour to the falls. The previous time we had visited, we had crossed to America and taken the American boat - Maid of the Mist.

The Falls were as impressive as always - first was American Falls, then Bridal Veil Falls and finally Horseshoe Falls which sits across the Canadian/American Border. Over 168,000m3 of water crosses the falls every minute and the Horseshoe Fall is 57m high.

America Falls (the wide waterfall to the left) and Bridal Veil Falls (Right)

Horseshoe Falls

Us at the Falls

The falls - America Falls (left), Bridal Veil (Middle), Horseshoe Falls (Right)

Like the Maid of the Mist, the Hornblower goes right up to the falls and you get soaked by the water, but the experience is amazing to be so close to the powerful waterfalls:

We walked back past some interesting attractions such as an upside down house and a slightly disturbing looking koala:

After a quick stop at Tim Horton's to try some traditional Canadian donut holes, we headed back to Pete's house for dinner and an Escape Room game. Pete was kind enough to allow us to stay for the night (all seven of us) and we got to see some of the wildlife in his back garden:

Downy Woodpecker

USA Trip (12th Sep - 8th Oct) - Day 8 - Reunion

The Family Reunion was really the main reason we had booked to go over to the USA in the first place.

I've discussed this side of the family previously in the blog, but essentially my Grandfather had been deployed to England in 1954 and met my Grandmother at the Upper Heyford Airbase. It was a one night fling after a dance and he was redeployed to Germany shortly after. He never knew he had a child and my Father never knew his grandfather. Through the miracles of DNA testing and a lot of hardwork by Kristine and myself, we managed to track him down and get in touch with the family and my Dad and Stepmum went to the USA in 2015 and were welcomed by the family.

We visited in 2016, 2017 and 2018 while we were over in Sweden. 

The purpose of this trip was to catch up with family again and also to introduce my sister and nephew to the family. Initially it was planned that just Kris, the kids and I went over and we were going to stop past and visit the family, but then it grew from there. Tara and Brett had never met the American side of the family so we invited them along, then Dad decided he wanted to visit also and my stepmum Jo also booked to come along. What was originally planned to just be a small catch up then grew legs of its own. My Uncle Mark had a property on Hubbard Lake and offered to host the family for a full reunion. Several of the other branches of the family from around the United States also booked to come along and we ended up with over 60 people present, many of which I had never met.

We had a chance to meet some of them for pre-catch up drinks and the rest on the Saturday for the reunion.

The kids immediately caught up with their cousins who they hadn't seen for 8 years (since Tomas was 10, Cameron 11 and Alana 12).

Mark's property was amazing, it was home to deer and other wildlife, had a river running through the backyard and also had a reconstructed mine that held mining gear that Mark's grandfather had used. The mine had also been used in a movie, Wild Faith Christmas, that Mark had played a part in.

I'll put a few photos from the day below - overall it was a long day but a great chance to catch up with everyone and lots of promises to catch up again soon:

Cousins

The family

These side-by-sides were used to ferry people to the car-parking next door

The River

Playing Cornhole against Alana and Tara

A miner's hat owned by my great-grandfather

Flags for every country attendees came from

Mark starting the grand tour

The Mine

Cameron in the river

It was a great day and a huge thanks to Mark for hosting!

We headed off late in the afternoon for the 3hr drive back to our accommodation in Flint.

USA Trip (12th Sep - 8th Oct) - Day 7 - Petoskey & Mackinac

 Today we took a long drive to see a few places in Northern Michigan and to get ready for the big family reunion that was planned the next day. We were staying in Flint and the family reunion was up at Hubbard Lake (about 2.5hrs north). We also wanted to see the Great Lakes as well as Petoskey and the Mackinac Bridge. To save us having to do a 5hr round trip on the day of the reunion, I booked us accommodation in a beach house in Oscoda, which was about 30min from Lake Hubbard, on the coast of Lake Huron:

We started with a drive up to Petoskey, which is the largest city in Emmet County, with a population of just under 6,000. It is famous for the Petoskey stones, which are fossilised coral which wash up on the shores of Lake Michigan. The stones look fairly ordinary until polished, when they then show a honeycomb pattern of the coral. It is the state stone of Michigan (since 1965):

The drive was 3hrs, mostly along the freeway and we arrived in Petoskey around lunch time. We parked in downtown and took a walk down to the beach.

Petoskey is named for a chief of the Ottawa people, known as Pet-O-Sega, who was the son of an Ottawan mother and a French fur-trader father. His name meant "Rising Sun" or "Rays of Dawn". He lived to be a wealthy fur trader, and when settlers built a village in the area in 1873 they named it after him.

While everyone looked out over the habour, I made the mistake of standing under a lightpost in my new Blizzcon shirt and a bird crapped on me, giving the Blizzcon shirt the name of "Bird Toilet" for the rest of the trip. I wiped most of it off and then managed to wash the rest of in a public toilet, but I wasn't happy with the bird.

The offenders

We then walked further along the beachfront (the shore of Lake Michigan), to find an area where we could search for Petoskey stones:

We didn't have any luck finding Petoskey stones (or we didn't know if we found them)...

We also came across some new friends on "The Friendship Bench" a sculpture by Gillie and Marc (2025):

The area also had a waterfall and a fish themed underpass tunnel:

Kris was quite taken by the plant life:

Panicled Aster (Symphyotrichum)

Bull Thistle

and the wildlife:

Ring-Billed Gull

Tom

After searching for a while, we had sandwiches on the beachfront and then headed into town, where Cameron found a bunch of record stores and Kristine purchased a Petoskey stone.

Our next stop was the Mackinac Bridge in Mackinaw City, but first we had to pass Wienerlicious:

Mackinaw City sits at the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula at the point where Lake Huron meets Lake Michigan. It is named for the Mackinac Strait that runs between the the Lakes, which in turn is named after the Ojibwe name, Mishinii-makinaang or Michilimackinac meaning "At the place of many snapping turtles".

While we didn't see any snapping turtles, we did get to see the Mackinac Bridge, which is a suspension bridge between the Lower and Upper Peninsulas. It was opened in 1957 and is 8km long, making it the 32nd longest main span (main span of 1.16km) in the world and the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western Hemisphere.

Looking from the south to north, Lake Michigan lies to the left and Lake Huron to the right.

Old Mackinac Point Light - Lighthouse built 1892, deactivated in 1957

From the bridge we drove down to Alpena. My Uncle Mark had worked at the Pepsi Company just near Alpena and when we first met him he gave us a model of the Alpena Lighthouse, so we wanted to see it for ourselves. The lighthouse was first built in 1875 as a 7.6m tall pole light after requests from the lumber industry. In 1887 it was replaced with a lumber one, which burned down in 1888 during a town fire. The current lighthouse was built in 1914 and is the only lighthouse of its type in the USA - using a steel frame supporting a weather-proof lightroom. It was painted red in 1950:

The kids were more interested in the dog mural nearby:

David Swartz (2026)

The St Bernard Catholic Church (founded 1861) was also impressive:

We arrived at our accommodation is Oscoda around 4pm and realised that we hadn't been given any details to check-in and the beach house was one of a single building housing several. It turns out that the owner had tried to call and message us but, since we had data-only American sim cards, he wasn't able to get hold of us. I tried an email but it bounced back, so in the end I activated my Australian sim, paid the $5 foreign connection cost and called the owner. He directed us to apartment one, which was unlocked with the key on the table.  While it didn't look like much from the outside, it was comfortable and well situated on the shore of Lake Huron... Oh and we saw a squirrel.

We then took a quick drive down to Tawas City to buy some supplies, such as soft drinks for the reunion, breakfast and dinner and then we drove up to Mark's house for a pre-reunion catch up. We stayed for a couple of hours and then headed back to Oscoda to sleep.