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.
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| 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:
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| Panicled Aster (Symphyotrichum) |
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| Bull Thistle |
and the wildlife:
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| Ring-Billed Gull |
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| 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.
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| 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:
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| 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.
