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Mini Mac

Friday nights in Belmont Harbor are usually raucous affairs with lots of drinking, loud music, and scantily clad women and men. Look what happened last weekend - three boats burned.

Tonight's flavor is distinctly different.

I arrived home around 8:30 to find a quiet, serious pall over the water. Not that the harbor is empty - but people are focused, working, preparing. I watched one shirtless guy with a cigar in his cheek unloading case after case of water and soda from the trunk of his car, and piling them one by one at the gate.

"Can I help you?" I offered.

He took one look at me and was probably about to say something like, "No thanks, honey," but then I added, "I have a cart."

He looked at me in awe. "You have a cart?"

I lent it to him. He called me, "Your worshipfulness."

It's like Santa's shop on December 23rd, folks: tonight is the eve of the Mackinac.

The Race to Mackinac is the annual race from Chicago's Navy Pier up to the top of Lake Michigan, to the Straits of Mackinac. And this year is not just any Mac - it's the 100th annual.

As we are heading out on our weeklong trip up the third coast Saturday morning, we might see them heading out....

But in case we miss them, earlier this week we got a view of some future Mac Racers -a sailing class Monday morning at the mouth of Belmont Harbor.



Mark calls this the "Mini Mac."

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