Day Two – Marshall MI to St. Ignace MI
Miles: 461
Elapsed Time: 12:48
It was hard to believe that we were going to be spending three nights in Michigan, but it’s a big state and there were many good roads and sights to see. We have been through the state so many times but have never really spent time going through it. After the night at Dark Horse we started pretty early all things considered. We ate at the Denny’s next door and we were off. After a nice 90 miles we were in Hamilton where we stopped to view an old railroad trestle over the Rabbit River. We considered stopping at the Holland Windmill but neither of us wanted to commit so we kept riding. We were riding north on US31 which is essentially an interstate and things don’t quiet down until we get north of Ludington. Once north of there the road becomes two-lane and we are more in our element. The road begins hugging the shoreline more and we are frequently getting glimpses of the Lake Michigan. We decide to get lunch in Frankfort and we hit Storm Cloud Brewery which serves a great beer and the wings were pretty good as well. Just north of Frankfort we stopped at the Port Betsie Lighthouse. We continued on another short clip and we were at Sleeping Bear Dunes. I was beginning to see why it takes so long to get through MI; there is much to see! We were still hugging the shoreline and we stopped at the Grand Traverse Lighthouse which was one of my favorites. We followed the shoreline of the Grand Traverse Bay into Traverse City and decided to stop for a brew and a quick bite at North Peak brewery. We sat outside but it wasn’t the warmest day especially considering it was August. It was already 5:00 and we still had some riding to do so we passed on some other opportunities to stop and hightailed it to the Mackinac Bridge where we stopped for some more pics but the fog was rolling in and not the best photo=op so we headed over to the UP and found our motel.
Not the best motel by a long shot and was easily the weakest link in our 2014 trip. Nothing was terrible but just overall the place didn’t seem that clean and there really was nothing at all around the place. We found some beer to take out and we were set.
