August 3-4-5, 2017 St. Ignace

August 3: Gloomy weather! The bright spot was this boat – Enticer, an 85 foot 1935 Trumpy-Matthews came into the marina. They charter one week cruisers, point of origin was Newport, RI. They went through the Erie Canal but then went through Lake Erie and Lake Huron to get here.

Between rain squalls I walked out to the nearby boardwalk and found a random painted rock. Believe it or not, I only took 2 pictures on August 3.

August 4: A rainbow first thing in the morning.

As I walked over to the marina office to pay for another day and to do laundry, the rainbow warped into a double rainbow.

Walked over to the nearby boardwalk and found very angry seas.

This placard describes what you’re looking at. Amazing engineering!

Coming back to the marina it looks like our boat is playing chicken with the Enticer. I also noticed the boat with the palm tree on its stern.

So the last time we had a weather delay and stayed at anchor all day, these were my pathetic statistices. How is it possible to only go 8 steps in one day????

Armed with that information I decided to walk to the bridge viewing park about 3 miles away from the marina.

OK, that’s better!

So back at the marina, the wind flags showed it was now blowing 30 knots out in Lake Michigan. The purple sticks have 3 horizontal lines coming off of them, one per ten knots. So, still not OK to go out into the Lake.

The weather was such a tease, here it looks perfectly calm, hence the term “harbor courage.”

But no, another storm front moves in. BTW, note the space ship looking trimarin opposite of us. Owners did eventually take it out, but only for 2 hours. To the right is the back corner of a Power Cat (a catamarin where the annoying mast has been removed). We met the owner – Paul Keech. What a hoot! He entertained us each night with his zany stories.

So Saturday, August 6 we woke up to a parade of Mini Coopers going by. What’s going on? I learned that there was a Mini Cooper Rally trying to break a Guiness World record of the most mini Coopers to cross a bridge.

Decked out Mini Cooper

Epic Fun sports daisy hub caps.

Decals tell it all.

So I noticed this guy – he was literally on top of his world as a Mini Cooper Dealer from Ann Arbor. He was gladly taking anyone’s camera to get a good shot of all the assembled cars. I decided his name was Al and handed him my camera.

This is the picture Al took with my camera. Thanks Al!

Here’s the official pace car. They were supposed to start at 10 am.

Finally movement! The police car to the left and the pace car started the parade

Vintage cars went first after the pace car.

Gotta love the enthusiasm here, on the bridge were Matchbox Mini Coopers!

The Classic Minnie Mini

Oops! One of the cars had been waiting so long with its lights on that when it was time for her to go, the car battery had died. The organizers started another row to proceed, in the meantime another Minnie Mini came to the rescue to jumpstart the disabled car. It worked and shortly thereafter the car joined the parade.

So here’s where I probably didn’t make the best decision of my life. I thought it would be cool to get over to the I-75 overpass where the minis would be near the crossing of the Mackinac Bridge. I got into conversation with this very nice gentleman on a dirt bike. I asked him where I could walk to the nearest overpass and he said he would take me there. I hopped on his motor bike without a helmet, drove 60 mph to the over pass to get the next few pictures. What a thrill!

Minis looking north (and yes, probably illegal as hell to stop on an overpass).

Minis looking south. (And yes, illegal as hell to do a U turn on a 4 lane highway).

Gentleman Dan. He dropped me off at the marina so I invited him over to the boat to meet Bob and see the boat. He was so nice! Creepy part: he lives alone in the woods. (Didn’t know that when I hopped on). Nice part: Re-affirms my belief in humanity. Most people are nice. We had a nice chat with him and then he just drove off.