Life has been super busy, and I am so behind on my posts! On September 20th we flew to Chicago to spend a few days visiting family before boarding a ship to tour the Great Lakes. My cousins relocated to Chicago from Cincinnati, and it had been several years since we had seen each other.
It was great to catch up, and Chicago is always a wonderful city to tour. One of my cousins took a day off work and she really showed us around, to the tune of nearly 19,000 steps! We were lucky with the weather, and though the Windy City lived up to its name, at least it wasn't too cold or rainy.
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| Chicago |
On September 24th we boarded the Victory II at Navy Pier. The Victory line is the only one that is allowed to dock and load passengers at the pier, which was pretty cool. The ship was totally remodeled in 2025, and holds 190 passengers. I thought it was interesting that nearly 50 of the passengers were from the Long Beach (California) Yacht Club. I believe all of the passengers were American, which isn't a surprise considering that the itinerary was to tour all five of the Great Lakes.
Our stateroom was nice, if small, but I did miss not having a balcony as none are offered on this ship. The room did have a large window, which helped. We left the pier at 6:00 p.m., cruising on Lake Michigan to our first stop in Milwaukee.
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| Victory II |
We arrived in Milwaukee at around 6:00 in the morning. The area where we docked was dismal, to say the least. I guess my expectation was that on this cruise we would be dropped off close to each city so that we could have on our excursion but also have time to walk around the city. That was not the case here.
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| Milwaukee |
We boarded a bus for our morning excursion, which was a tour giving us a historical overview of the city. We started at the North Point Lighthouse & Museum, established in 1888. We were able to climb the 84 cast-iron steps followed by a short ladder to get to the top of the lighthouse.
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| North Point Lighthouse |
From there we drove to Marquette University to visit the St. Joan of Arc Chapel. Originally built in France around 1420, the gothic stone chapel was shifted to the United State in the 1920s and eventually brought to Marquette and reassembled in 1966.
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| St. Joan of Arc Chapel |
Our final stop was the Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the family mansion was completed in 1892. The family sold the residence in 1908, and the Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese resided there. The property was again sold in 1975, and the museum opened in 1978.
The ship pulled out of port to a beautiful sunset, and we were treated to a full moon rising over Lake Michigan as we made our way to the next stop - Escanaba.
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| Pabst and smooth sailing |
