What were they thinking??

Last week Saturday, we took the boys to Mackinac Island.  We were on our way home from our U.P. house, so we spent the night in St. Ignace and headed over to the island first thing Saturday morning.  Sam would have been perfectly content to ride the ferry back and forth all day.  He was fascinated with it.  TJ was only mildly interested in things...he was more annoyed that he was without internet all day and couldn't play on his iPod.  Nolan was up for adventure and was pretty impressed with everything we saw.

We rented bikes and rode around the island.  TJ was on a bike by himself, Bill and Sam were on a tandem bike, and (lucky me), I was on a bike with Nolan behind me on a tagalong.  This means that I rode 8.1 miles with 48 pounds of cheerful dead weight behind me.  He doesn't feel obligated to pedal very often.

We made several stops.  One was at Arch Rock.  A  new staircase was just built last summer so you can access Arch Rock from the road that wraps around the island.  But it's quite a commitment.  I believe it was 207 steps up...in the sun, right after we got off of bicycles.  It was a slow climb.  Nolan clung to my hand and needed encouragement to keep going.  At one point, he was completely out of breath and said, "What were they thinking, putting this rock up so high?"

I laughed.  Yeah, what were those guys thinking...4000 years ago when the arch was formed?

When we got to the top, Nolan looked around in awe and proclaimed that the long climb up had been "totally worth it".  We all agreed.