Parade O’ Trucks In St. Ignace And Mackinaw City, MI

The following day from the Antique Tractor Parade there was a Truck Parade.  Who knew?  Two parades in one weekend.

This was the 17th Annual Richard Crane Memorial Truck Show. Located just across the Mackinac Bridge in St. Ignace, MI.

To go on for 17 years this must be pretty popular. So we decided to go check it out.

One dilemma. How do we shoot it with the quadcopter without having to lug around the giant case that it’s in?

Wallah! David strapped the quadcopter to a backpack and we had all the extra batteries and things inside. Not to bad but not something that would be terribly comfortable while hiking. We’ll have to come up with something better for that.

Once in St. Ignace we strolled the street and looked for the best angles to shoot. It was difficult because there were a lot of people looking at all the trucks. We don’t like flying over people for safety sake. David did manage to get some good video of the trucks though. One truck we wanted to get lower and see our reflection so we had people helping us block the street off so we could shoot it. So a big Thank You to those guys that helped us block the street temporarily.

And speaking of trucks. I’ve never been terribly interested in semi-trucks but these show trucks were nice.

They really had them all decked out.

All the way down to glitter on the tires to dress them up. You should have seen the street. It was full of glitter.

And the horns on this one truck pictured above…wow. He had several different tunes he could play with them. But he couldn’t go all out he said because he was facing a building with windows and he could easily shatter them if he played them full blast.

They did not go without humor in this show.

Here is the Dunkin Donuts truck on display with the other trucks. Right in line with them going down the street. Everyone seemed to get a kick out it.

Then there was the beautiful “Piece De’ Resistance”. This trucker painted his entire cab and trailer in honor of 9/11. A moving 9/11 memorial if you will.

It just made our jaws drop.  It was very awe inspiring.

That night was the parade.  It happens at dusk and the trucks have tons of display lights lit up for everyone to see.  They also play their horns.

So here we are freezing our butts off. We were bundled up and had a blanket over us. We were not the only ones. The wind that night just cut right through you.

As you can imagine, it gets super loud. And even though it was really really chilly, like 45 degrees chilly, their was a huge crowd that lined the streets. Just for a chance to see these truckers show off their trucks.

It’s really difficult to get good pictures while in the dark. I tried my best but these are the only shots worth looking at. You really can not get the whole scope of things. Their are a LOT of lights and the horns are deafening.

Now imagine all these trucks, all lit up, driving over the Mackinac Bridge, into Mackinaw City, around the town and getting back on the bridge to head back. I’m not sure how long it took them round trip but we were their from beginning to end at it took 45 minutes to go by us. Their were hundreds of trucks. All lit up and blasting their horns. With the cold setting in it actually felt like we were looking at Christmas lights!

David can not fly the copter at night because the camera would not be able to focus in the dark. So below is the footage that he shot while walking around town that day.

Everyone seemed to have a fun time with it. I know we did. It was definitely Outside Our Bubble!