Gribblenation

The morning started out early in Kalkaska since I wanted to make the 8:20 AM boat to Mackinac Island out of St. Ignace.  That being the case I headed northbound on US 131 and cut-off east on County Route C42 on the Alba Highway.  Alba had some nice abandoned buildings to check out in the early hours before sunrise.  It seems the community has less than 300 people left according the most recent census statistics I could find.  I always thought it was interesting that Michigan did County Routes in letter grids much like California does. I took M-32 to get over to I-75 northbound.  In the 58 miles north on I-75 to the Mackinac Bridge I only saw one vehicle traveling the same direction as me, I would say the increase to a 75 MPH speed limit is highly justified.  US 31 was routed over to I-75 on a detour to bypass the closure that are currently active. I essentially had the entire Mackinac Bridge to myself given it was early in the morning...

For the second time in its history, the Mackinac Bridge , "The Mighty Mac", will be featured on a U.S. Postage Stamp.  The latest stamp will formally go on sale Wednesday, February 3rd.  The new stamp is a Priority Mail stamp and will cost $4.90.  The Mackinac Bridge Authority and Michigan Department of Transportation will unveil the stamp at an 11 a.m. Wednesday ceremony at Bridge View Park in St. Ignace. The bridge was first featured on a U.S. Postage stamp in 1958 (shown below) - the first class stamp cost only three cents. Story Links: Mighty Mac stamp to be unveiled ---Detroit Free Press HT: Jim Parker

Over the Labor Day Holiday, I had the opportunity to go up to Michigan. I explored a heck of a lot of new territory for me, and I will have photos of that up on the blog later this month. But one of the real highlights of the trip was taking part of the 52 nd Mackinac Bridge Walk on Labor Day. The entire flickr set is here . (66 photos) Our party left got to Mackinaw City at about 7:15. There was a long back up at Exit 337 so we went down the highway one mile and got off at Ext 338. There was a parking lot right across the end of the exit ramp - and we saved plenty of time (which would really come in handy not that long after). The walk from the parking lot to the shuttle bus was just as the sun rose...and there were some great shots of the sun rise over the harbor. We were able to load onto to the shuttle bus to take us over to the St. Ignace side of the bridge at just before 8 am. That's when the delays started. On the southbound lanes of the bridge - two pick ...