Saturday  September 1, 2012

Today was spent exploring in and around Cheboygan.  We began with breakfast at Alice’s restaurant.  We then road around Cheboygan to see the Cheboygan locks, opera house and the coast guard cutter.  The Coast Guard Cutter is not open to the public anymore but does have open house occasionally for locals.  The locks were a mini version of the soo locks.  We watched one or two boats go in at a time.  It is the way for pleasure boats to come out to Lake Huron from the Cheboygan/Indian Rivers.  Next we road 12 miles to get to the Historic mill up 23.  We did the zip line there twice and then did the the climbing wall and the swing bridge over the river.  Then we did another 12 miles back to the boat and dinner.  This evening we ate at the boat house on the river.  The first time down the zip line I did not kick off at the platform so I did not make it all the way to the step off point.  The attendant passed a boat hook to me and pulled me in.  The second time I took a running start and went faster down the line.  I also turned several times and ended up reaching the platform backwards.  We also did a short hike with the naturalist there and watched some demonstrations of water powered mill as well as hand hewn squaring off of a log.  Total we rode about 35 miles today.  Now we are sitting back at the boat enjoying the quiet time before we head to Rogers City tomorrow.