Friday, March 12, 2010

Memories of Summer

Wordless... Friday? Photos from the first 3 days of the Mackinaw City vacation with me and the kids.












In June 2009, I took all 3 kids, by myself I might add, up to Mackinaw City, Michigan. It was a long drive (we left at 9am, and arrived around 4pm, with a few rest stops), and while it was stressful doing the vacation without help, it was fun.

Some facts-

In the Mackinaw area, you will see 2 spellings. Mackinac and Mackinaw, but both are pronounced Mackinaw. The Mackinaw spelling is attributed to the British soldier influence, and is reserved for the city- Mackinaw City.

Mackinac is the influence of the French soldiers, and is found on everything else- The Straights of Mackinac, the Mackinac Bridge, Mackinac Island, etc.

The area was under the protection of the French at one time, and the British at one time, accounting for the varried sayings.

While we enjoyed a Mackinac vacation, we stayed in Mackinaw City, went across the Mackinac Bridge 4 times total, and visited the Mackinac Island once- which is a motorized  vehicle free zone. There are no motorized vehicles, except the ambulance and 2 fire engines. The rest are horses!

6 comments:

Jess said...

I hate that bridge. I scare the dickens out of me. I live in MI and had to travel to the UP for business. I had a whole line of traffic behind me. LOL I probably could have pushed my car faster than I drove it.
Great Pics though.

Expressions by Heather said...

I was worried- I'd been across the bridge when I was younger, but had never been across it as an adult, let alone as an adult driving. I've gotten more afraid of heights over the past few years, so I wasn't real keen on driving it. I did good, though, I just kept staring ahead, and repeating in my head that it hadn't collapsed yet, it should hold up for me ;)

Liz said...

I live on Mackinac year-round. I'm glad you had a nice trip to this neck of the woods.

J Rodney said...

Fabulous photos Heather! We are finally getting our summer weather here in South Florida.

Sara said...

Oh! I love your Mackinac photos. Takes me back to my days of living in Ann Arbor/Ypsi and roadtripping to northern MI. Always loved visiting The Mystery Spot. What kind of filter do you apply to your photos to get that old-fashioned look? I've been looking everywhere. I love the concept of you blog, BTW.

Expressions by Heather said...

Sara- I use Picnik.com to edit. For these ones, I first add a vignette to the photos, to darken the edges. Then, I up the contrast to about a 15, and exposure to a 5. That makes the colors pop a bit more.

From there, I add the "Orton-ish" feature, but scale back the base settings on "Bloom" and up the base settings on "Fade" just a bit on both, or it comes across as too blurry.

Then, I use a corner rounding frame for the end, before adding the text!

I love Mackinac. It's such a beautiful area!