ST. IGNACE, MI - It wasn’t the ocean, but we can forgive the 3-year-old Michigander’s mistake as she looked out at the the Straits of Mackinac for the first time.

My daughter, Arya Lofton, sat in her five-point harness car seat in the back of our lifted Ford F-150 as I drove across the Mackinac Bridge on Sunday, Aug. 17. It was her first crossing (and my first time driving).

Our extended family traveled in two vehicles a we headed to a ferry dock in St. Ignace and then to Mackinac Island to bike the iconic M-185. But the drive across the bridge was an event in itself.

As the pickup truck approached the southern end of the bridge, the sky was blue, and the winds were calm. My sister, Alexis McGuire, 27, of Gillette, Wyo., faced a phone camera at her niece to catch Arya’s reaction to what

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