Road trip around Lake Michigan

Our family visited Troy, MI to see my brother's family, my mom, and dad in June 2019. From there we had planned for a road trip around Lake Michigan. Since we are 7 adults and 3 young kids (1 yr, 2 yr and 5 yr old), who needed car seats, we rented a 12-seat passenger van for the trip. We bought snacks, packed basic Indian spices for cooking on our road trip. we had booked Airbnb houses/hotel rooms with a kitchen equipped with basic cooking utensils to cook the yummy and healthy Indian food.

We had started our road trip on June 25, 2019, from Troy MI around 7 am. We had a nice 4-5 hour long countryside drive to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, kids had fun watching and counting the number of cows, horses, alpacas on the way. On the National Lakeshore, Lake Michigan appeared like a giant sweet water ocean to us with clear see-through water. The weather was perfect to enjoy the view but the water was freezing cold to play.

This place had numerous viewpoints but the visitor spot in the below pic has access to water in a weird way. People were sliding down the sand dune (it is about  450-foot drop) to feel the lake but it is struggling to climb up, it may take up to 2 hours. None of us tried sliding down as it was crazy to do, it will get more challenging when there are strong winds, we did see crazy winds when we were on the view deck, it made it hard to take pictures as well.

Here is a nice of view of one of the Lake Michigan's bay:

From there we drove to Traverse City, it is about 30 miles drive from the National Lakeshore. We stayed there in a hotel, it is across one of Lake Michigan's bay. There was an asphalt trail right behind the hotel, my husband and dad went on biking for a few miles while kids played in the pool with their cousin. We had healthy Indian dinner freshly prepared by my mom that night. Then we all slept after a pleasantly tiring day.

Next day morning (June 26) we got up, cooked breakfast and packed lunch for the day. My husband hinted me to go biking while kids were busy getting ready for the day. So, I escaped and went biking with my dad in the trail, it was the best moment because we talked about how he taught me biking when I was a kid, and we tried to race when there were no joggers on the trail. Then we came back and packed our luggage to continue our journey to Mackinaw city. 

Mackinaw city is at the northern tip of Michigan's Lower Peninsula along the southern shore of the Straits of Mackinac. Across the straits lies the state's Upper Peninsula. These two landmasses are physically connected by the Mackinac Bridge. This is a spectacular hanging bridge is about 5 miles long. 

From Mackinaw city we took a ferry to Mackinac Island, it is a car-free island where you can see combined water of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. We could see horse carts and bikes on the road, we wanted to explore the island through biking (see asphalt bike road below), so went ahead and rented the bike for everyone (3 tandem bikes for my husband and daughter, dad and mom, bro and sister-in-law, men's bike for my nephew and a bike with a trailer for me, my 2 yr old son and my 1-year-old niece). 

We were not sure how far we would bike as we all started biking with excitement. My mom had not biked from the last 45 years, she also went on a tandem bike. We did not talk or plan on how far we would bike as we were busy enjoying the great lakes, again it was crystal clear water, it was easy to get lost in nature. we biked on and on, we noticed we biked about 8.3 miles, I am proud of mom and my daughter because they never biked this far without taking long breaks. I believe mother nature's beauty made this biking trip memorable for our family. I wondered how life would be in Mackinaw island during winter, people their mentioned town will make a snowmobile path between Mackinaw city and island for commuters. Mackinaw Island has nice places for ice cream and fudge, we all treated ourself with ice cream after a long bike ride. My daughter liked this so much that she would like to visit this island again.

Then we returned back to Mackinac city in the evening, there we stayed in a hotel next to the Lakeshore. As we were tired, guys went to get food from a Thai restaurant. The restaurant guy suggested us to visit Headlands International dark sky park at night for stargazing. After dinner kids went to bed early as they were tired. We adults went for swimming and sat in Jacuzzi to relax.

As we passed 12.30 am me and my husband, brother and sis-in-law and nephew went to the dark sky park suggested by a Thai restaurant on a pitch dark night. This is a protected area for astronomical studies and star gazing. This park is lit with red lights including bathrooms, it is because red lights make it easier for our eyes to adjust quickly for the twilight. The park rangers had adjusted their telescopes to view Jupiter and Saturn, it was open for the public to view. We enjoyed looking at the planets, then my husband spotted a patch of clouds in the sky. He checked in with park rangers is it clouds? they said it is a part of milky way galaxy. we were delighted to see milky way galaxy from our bare eyes. 

View of Milky Way from Headlands Internation Dark Sky Park | Photo Courtesy of Petoskey Area Visitors Bureau

The park ranger mentioned we could also see the northern lights in this dark sky park, but it is hard to predict, sometimes even prediction fails as well.

We came back to the hotel around 2 am, then we sat near the campfire on the lakeshore to enjoy the Lake in the twilight.

On June 27 morning, we drove on the Mackinac bridge to Munising, is a city on the southern shore of Lake Superior on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There we took ferry tour of Pictured Rock, many rock formations were very artistic and picturesque.

From there, we had a little longer drive to Green Bay, home of American football team Packers in Wisconsin. We stayed in an Airbnb house, the house owners are a big fan of Green Bay Packers, the house was decorated with Packers wall painting and decor. we had a nice dinner, cooked at home and took enough rest to recoupe for the next day.

On June 28, we visited Peninsula state park in Door County, it is on the west shore of Lake Michigan since the weather was good we were able to see the Lake's east shore, is in Michigan. Fortunately, Lake water was a bit warm, kids and adults had great fun. That night we drove about 4 hours to reach Chicago, in between we stopped at Milwaukee for dinner at an Indian restaurant, it had a live Hindi music.  We reached our Airbnb house in Chicago, Illinois around 1 AM, as all were tired went straight to bed. 

On June 29 morning, we drove to Navy Pier in Chicago downtown, from there we took a hop on hop off bus to view the skyscrapers. I am not a big fan of skyscrapers, I thought Chicago is another concrete jungle in the USA. From there we went to 360 Chicago Observation deck to take a peek at an aerial view of the city.  I enjoyed the view by thinking Chicago is not on the seashore but on the shore of Lake Michigan (see picture below) and Chicago river flows through the city. All the major cities including Newyork, LOS Angeles, Boston, San Francisco is easily connected to sea route for historical trade, Chicago is geographically located in the heart of the US, I started to think how Chicago is connected to the external world via sea route and how did this city grow.

Anyway, we were super hungry we had a nice late lunch at Cheesecake factory, it is my favorite restaurant because they have nice options for vegetarians, kids also like this place. Surprisingly, my mom and dad enjoyed the meal.

In the evening we went on an architectural boat tour, it takes through the Chicago river in between Chicago's popular skyscraper. Here is the city view from the Chicago river:

Their tour guide mentioned, this Chicago river joins the River Mississippi and then to the Gulf of Mexico, my mind is clear now how this city grew with this river route for transportation. Chicago is also a hub for AMTRAC railway route. Also, there is an interesting history of how mankind polluted Chicago river and polluted Lake Michigan, it is a source of drinking water. Chicago is no different from other big cities in the world in terms of polluting water. Eventually, the city of Chicago worked hard for years to reverse the flow of the Chicago River. You can learn more here.

On June 30 morning, we celebrated my husband's birthday with a cake but his actual birthday was on June 29, we couldn't cut the cake as kids were tired last night. 

After that, we visited Swami Narayan temple, admired the architecture of the temple, my parents happen to meet a family from Bhadravathi lives in the USA. Then we had a nice Indian brunch and drove back to Chicago downtown. We visited Willis tower Skydeck to get the view of another side of the city, from there walked to another Chicago's popular Bean structure, which is called Cloud Gate. From there we drove about 5-6 hours to get back to Troy, Michigan bypassing Indianapolis.

In the total of 6 days, we cruised through Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indianapolis to go around Lake Michigan, and view a few parts of Lake Huron and Superior. Kudos to my brother and my husband for being our Chauffeurs for the entire road trip(~1300 miles) ;). Overall we had a memorable road trip with our family. My favorite of all the places we visited was Mackinaw Island, my 5-year-old daughter really enjoyed this place, she literally understood the meaning of the island by biking around the island, and noted the only way to get to the island was by a ferry. She would like to visit Mackinaw City and island next summer.