CHICAGO!!!

One day early and we've made it to Chicago!

Since we haven't had a signal since we left Mackinac City, let me catch you up as to how we got to Chicago!


Tuesday, July 17
Took our time leaving Mackinac City, as winds were blowing at 10-20 knots and there was a chance of morning thunderstorms.  By 10:30 a.m. winds had settled to 10 knots and the chance of thunderstorms was almost nonexistant, so we headed out for the "Straits of Mackinac" under the Mackinac Bridge.

Can you tell I just got a new camera? ;)

Enough of the bridge, on with the cruising of the "Straits of Mackinac"!  While we were cruising there were some very narrow passages along the straits, so instead of just lighthouses with foghorns to tell the captain where the channel is, these lighthouses had the ability to give the captain an enhanced and larger image on the boat's radar screen; they're called "radar transponder beacons".

Things were good as we crashed into the very large waves, however when we had to make the turn . . . uggh!  Back to that rolling that we experienced on Lake Erie.  Captain Dave put the boat on plane so that the rolling only lasted for about 30 minutes.  Before we knew it, we were at our destination; Beaver Island. 

This picture is looking out into the bay from the island.  The island turned out to be mostly that of a resort island with only one grocery store, gift shop, restaurant, and hardware store (you know Dave loved that!)  Anyway, not too much to do.  This was, though, a historic first on the trip, as we anchored out in this beautiful bay!!!

There we are, first boat in the left of the picture with all of the other sailboats :)
Had a nice dinner on board and watched "Meet Joe Black" . . . very interesting and LONG movie!


Wednesday, July 17
The next morning, we got going fairly early, as we wanted to get to Pentwater, Michigan, which is half an hour south of Ludington (for those of you who know of the famous Badger Ferry, this is where it leaves from in Michigan to travel across the lake to Wisconsin; fun trip . . .did it with the girls some years ago).  We traveled most of the Michigan shoreline, which is very sandy.  This is Bear Point (Krystina climbed this on our family vacation to Mackinac Island!).

We also saw from the lake a lighthouse that we had stopped to check out from land on our family Mackinac Island trip.

The weather was beautiful as well as the cruise.  The large hills of sand were something else to see from the lake.  How would you like to travel these stairs to take a refreshing dip in Lake Michigan?

After a long day of cruising, we finally arrived at our location; Pentwater.  This resort town turned out to be the cutest town ever (right up there with Vermilion, Ohio, without the canals)!  This park is what we first saw as we entered a canal which led to the Pentwater River.

Adorable homes, parks, and marinas lined the canal and river.  We had dinner at Gull Shores where an eight-piece live jazz band played as we had dinner outside overlooking the river!  There were bike/jogging paths all over with the cutest shops ... too bad I ran out of time to check them out :(  I would HIGHLY recommend this town as a destination stop for a summer trip!

Thursday, July 18

Well, today was a very interesting day.  Unlike the beautiful, sunny photo above, we woke to rain showers.  The wind wasn't too bad, so we decided to cross the lake and head to Racine, Wisconsin - ahh, home :)!  However, we weren't out on the lake for too long when we discovered the waves were crazy!!!  It just didn't make any sense, as the winds weren't strong, but there seemed to be huge rollers which tossed our boat all around.  I don't get seasick, but since it was difficult to move around the boat, let alone do anything, I spent most of our cruising day in the pilothouse either reading or sleeping.  I just got a wierd feeling in my stomach as the boat rolled in many different directions.  Dave stuck it out on the top deck for most of the day.  I managed to give him a break and drive for an hour.  The last few days I have driven about a third of the time, so I felt bad not doing my part today.  Since our good friends, John and Kelli Peltier are meeting up with us in Chicago Saturday morning, we wanted to make sure that we got to Chicago sometime on Friday.  However, in listening to Friday's forcast, the winds were supposed to be anywhere from 10-20 knots and waves from 5 to 7 feet!!!  I don't know what we had today, but they were large and we didn't want to deal with anything larger, especially since the winds were going to be rough!  As much as Dave and I wanted to go to Racine and get off of the lake, we knew we had to push through and get to Chicago today.  So, on the water by 8:00 this morning and we finally pulled into port at 5:30 p.m. at Burnham Harbor - by the History Museum, Shed Aquarium, and Planetarium.  We're also right next to an outdoor concert where the majority of listeners are teenage girls.  Carly Rae Jensen (I think that's her name), who sings the popular "Call Me Maybe" and the band Boys Like Girls are performing.  I have to say, looking at the city lights of Chicago while listening to a live band - and plenty of screaming teenage girls :), is the best spot to work on the blog!!!  It's nice to be back in our regular time zone and no more lakes with unpredictable waves!  Saturday morning we leave Chicago for the Illinois River . . . that will be a nice change :)

I'll leave you with one more picture.  This is of the marina as we're pulling in.  You'll see the Willis Tower (Sears Tower) on your left.