Great Vacations= Great Memories Part 2

Read part one here.

So we had a relaxing night in our hotel the first night. After doing some research on the weather we changed our plans a bit for the next day. We had planned to go to the Island on day 2, and Tahquamenon Falls on day 3. Well the Falls are about an hour and a half from Mackinaw City. The weather was gonna be stormy in Mackinaw, but beautiful up at the falls, so we switched the days. We headed out from Mackinaw City for the drive to the Falls. When we got to the falls it was beautiful as the weather had said it would be, it got up to about 80 degrees. Tahquamenon falls sits back in the woods, and it's a little hike to get back to the river and then you take 94 steps down to get level with the falls. You get right next to the amazingly beautiful falls, so close you can feel the mist coming off of them. You can also go down into what they call the gouge, it's down the river away from the falls, you take about twice as many stairs down so your at river level and can see the falls straight in front of you. We did not go down in the gouge, it's just not worth all the steps for a view that's not that great.



Instead we took the nature trail back to the parking lot, the normal trail is paved and about a 1/2 mile. The nature trail is a beaten path through the woods that's about 1 1/2 miles. It was really quite nice on the nature trail with lots of wild flowers and interesting looking trees. Next on the agenda was Oswald's Bear Ranch, it was about 20 miles down the road. Well here comes the next hiccup. The bridge to the main road was out. If you know anything about Northern Michigan you know that there are main roads and the back roads or side roads are basically 2 tracks. We ended up taking an hour and a half detour down the county roads, which are not 2 tracks, but they are dirt and go every which way but in a straight line! So 20 more miles out of our way and an 1 hour and 1/2 later we made it to the Bear Ranch. We went inside paid to go see the Bears, get out there and no more then 5 minutes later it starts down pouring on us! We had umbrella's so we did get to see the Baby's that were about 4 months old and they were so cute! We also seen the yearlings, and one adult male. They were all beautiful animals. And of course once we got in the car and left it stopped raining! O, the fun of vacations :) We headed back to the hotel, stopping and eating a VERY late lunch. Relaxing the rest of the night in the hotel again with our game plan ready for day 3.



Again this is long so I will add a part 3.