Mackinac Island October 2012

Dates: October 7 - October 10, 2012

People: Mark

SUNDAY OCTOBER 7

It should be pointed out if you are reading this that this really wasn't a vacation at all. It shows up in our Travel Log as a means of sharing some of the joyful freedom from this beautiful location away from home.

Today was the travel day up to Northern Michigan. I left right at lunch time and rode up north with Pastor Schultz and his wife Chris. It was a solid 5+ hour drive up to Mackinac City. When we made it up there it was quite cold. We parked at the Arnold Line Ferry and hopped in the short line to grab our ferry tickets. The Michigan District had made the tickets part of registration so this pickup was easy. After securing our tickets we headed into downtown and grabbed supper at the KFC.

The ferry ride over was pleasant. I sat and had a nice talk with Chris Fairbairn on the way. I chose to keep my bags on me which was a very wise decision. The evening was spent registering, opening worship, and watching people wait for their bags. I got a room in the Mission Point Resort in one of their older buildings. It was a nice room with a suite setup that I was sharing with another pastor I did not know. We ended up each taking a room and so also had our own space and our own sleeping area.

MONDAY OCTOBER 8

This morning began with free time to go on a "Prayer Walk". So I decided to get in a good hike across the island. You can read about that in my hiking blog entry below:

Hiking Blog Link

The rest of the day was spent in conference business. They had us in the old theater at Mission Point. This made for very crowded seating and the Wi-Fi was terrible so little connection to the internet. We were supposed to have a Lakeside Cookout tonight but with the poor weather they had us indoors for our meal.

TUESDAY OCTOBER 9

Today was another somewhat full day of conference stuff. They had a great Mexican buffet for lunch which I enjoyed fully. Again we had some free time in the afternoon. I took time here to go out for a slightly drizzly run around parts of the southern end of the Island. I also took time to walk around town a bit and look in windows. The evening was the banquet and they served us a very fine meal.

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 10

Today was a very quick morning session and then the rush to the ferry. We decided to skip out right as the last speaker ended at 10am. I had my stuff packed already and so I made a quick walk down to Arnold Line's ferry terminal. As we watched others board it looked like most of our conference group had tried to make this 11am ferry as the next one didn't leave til 1pm. I rode on the top deck this time and enjoyed the very cool and windy breezes.

The End.