Okay, I joked earlier in the day that I'd be heading down to the Milwaukee lakefront to look for those flamingos, but I think this time I'm actually going to make the trip and try to find me one of these bad boys:
Super cool promo here and I just might book a stay here regardless of whether I find one of the bottles or not.
The bottles were dropped into the Mackinac Straits over Labor Day weekend from White Shoal Light, the tallest lighthouse on the Great Lakes, as part of the lighthouse's "Message in a Bottle Contest"...
This latest contest was part of a special celebration commemorating the offshore lighthouse's 113th anniversary.
Four descendents [sic] of White Shoal's longest-running lightkeeper, George Keller, played a key role in the Labor Day weekend celebrations: Each wrote a personal message to tuck into one of the bottles, along with a note about the prize for an overnight stay, before sending the bottles out onto the freshwater seas.
Love the Police reference.
And yeah, this isn't just some random contest; the "message in a bottle" theme has some history behind it.
While stranded in the lighthouse with no heat during the deadly Armistice Day Blizzard of November 1940, Keller and a fellow keeper had scribbled the storm's harrowing details on the back of a calendar page, slipped the note into a bottle, and tossed it off into the fury outside, perhaps to provide testimony to the historic storm if they didn't survive.
They did in fact survive, as did that message in a bottle, which was discovered a few weeks later by a pair of fishermen near Gros Cap, Mich., west of St. Ignace.
Super cool that they got some of Keller's descendants to participate in this.
In case you're interested in the stay, here's what White Shoal Light looks like:
Yup, it's in the middle of nowhere between the two Michigans.
Each of the four bottles contains within a free three-night stay at the remote lighthouse, which usually runs around $3,000. Again, I'll be down at the lakefront later on in the week if you're looking for me.
So get out there, my Great Lakes peeps, and find yourself a free $3,000 stay at White Shoal. It'll be the experience of a lifetime.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
