Great Lakes Road Trip Day 4 Part 2; Mackinac Island and M-185

As I stated in the previous post I was due for the 8:20 AM boat out of St. Ignace to Mackinac Island. I'm really finding it to my advantage to get up early since nobody really wants to get moving in Michigan before 9 AM. I figured that I would get a lap of the island in on a bike along M-185 before the crowds showed up. The boat rides to Mackinac are only a couple minutes and land on the shore in the city of Mackinac Island.

I grabbed a 7-speed bike near the ferry dock and got started on M-185 traveling island counter-clockwise. M-185 is a state highway maintained solely for non-motorized traffic and is primarily known as a bike route. M-185 is approximately eight miles in length and only has two shields; one in each direction next to Marquette Park. M-185 is known as Main Street in the city of Mackinac Island and Lake Shore Road around the rest of the island. The road that became M-185 was built from 1900 to 1910 and was assigned a trunkline number in 1933. M-185 is open to emergency vehicles but otherwise motorized traffic is completely prohibited. My bike sucked (it kept dropping 6th gear) but it did give me some extra speed over the single-speed cruisers, I've done a distance biking in my time and slow wasn't coming to cut it.

What is now Mackinac Island State Park was originally the second National Park after Yellowstone. Mackinac Island National Park was in place from 1875 to 1895 when it was transferred back to the state of Michigan. Really with the volume of things to do on the island and all the history it is no wonder to me that it was one of the first National Parks. I went to; Arch Rock, Fort Holmes, Fort Mackinac, The Grand Hotel, and cruised the city to find ice cream before departing for the day. Supposedly I got 5.6 miles of hiking in through the core of the island after I dropped off the bike.

Had a hell of a view from the hotel room to enjoy the rest of the night as I was editing photos.

Comments

Old NY 10 and Goodman Mountain in the Adirondacks

Old highway alignments come in all shapes and sizes, as well as taking some different forms after their lifespan of serving cars and trucks has ended. In the case of an old alignment of what was NY 10 south of Tupper Lake, New York, part of the old road was turned into part of a hiking trail to go up Goodman Mountain. At one time, the road passed by Goodman Mountain to the east, or Litchfield Mountain as it was known at the time. As the years passed, sometime around 1960, the part of NY 10 north of Speculator became part of NY 30, and remains that way today from Speculator, past Indian Lake and Tupper Lake and up to the Canadian Border. At one time, the highway was realigned to pass the Goodman Mountain to the west, leaving this stretch of road to be mostly forgotten and to be reclaimed by nature. During the summer of 2014, a 1.6 mile long hiking trail was approved the Adirondack Park Agency to be constructed to the summit of the 2,176 foot high Goodman Mountain. For the first 0.9 mi

Oregon State Highway 58

Also known as the Willamette Highway No. 18, the route of Oregon State Highway 58 (OR 58) stretches some 86 miles between US 97 north of Chemult and I-5 just outside of Eugene, Oregon. A main route between the Willamette Valley region of Oregon with Central Oregon and Crater Lake National Park, the highway follows the Middle Fork Willamette River and Salt Creek for much of its route as it makes its way to and across the Cascades, cresting at 5,138 feet above sea level at Willamette Pass. That is a gain of over 4,500 in elevation from where the highway begins at I-5. The upper reaches of OR 58 are dominated by the principal pinnacle that can sometimes be seen from the highway, Diamond Peak, and three nearby lakes, Crescent, Odell and Waldo (Oregon's second largest lake). OR 58 is chock full of rivers, creeks, mountain views, hot springs and waterfalls within a short distance from the highway. OR 58 was numbered as such by the Oregon State Highway Department in 1940. OR 58 is a del

Siuslaw River Bridge - US 101 in Florence, Oregon

As the Oregon Coast Highway (US 101) was being completed across the State of Oregon during the 1930s, a number of bridges needed to be built to cross some of the state's finest rivers. In Florence, Oregon , the Siuslaw River Bridge was designed and constructed to help fill in the gaps between different coastal communities. Built in 1936, the Siuslaw River Bridge is a bascule bridge flanked by two reinforced concrete arches that spans across the Siuslaw River. The bridge and the river get their names from the Siuslaw tribal people who make their home along the river valleys of this part of the Oregon Coast. Today, the bridge provides a vital link connecting US 101 and the Central Oregon Coast to points north and south. The total length of the Siuslaw River Bridge is 1,568 feet, stretching across the river. But more specifically, the bridge is made up of a north approach with eight spans of reinforced concrete deck girder totaling 478 feet in length. There is a main span in three

Gribblenation

Search This Blog