Monday August 31 – Wednesday September 2, 2015
Mackinaw Island had not changed much since our first visit in 1979. At that time they were filming “Somewhere in Time”, a forgettable film with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. I remember that there were trucks and trailers on the island for the film production. No vehicles (except ambulance and fire trucks) are normally allowed on the island. Instead, there are horses…. Over 600 of them. Horses haul supplies to the hotels, construction materials to building sites, and tourists all over the island.
We decided to be tourists. We paid about $29 each for the almost two hour carriage ride tour of the island, and it was great! We learned all about Belgian draft horses. The carriage companies buys them from the Amish after they’ve plowed fields for a number of years. Our first carriage took us through “downtown” fudgeland, past the Grand Hotel with the longest porch, and up to the beginning on the state park. We had two horses for the ride, and the one on the right was the dawdler. Our second carriage ride through the woods and out to Arch Rock had three horses. The one on the left carried the load, the one in the middle helped some, and the right horse was doing as little as possible. We learned a lot about Mackinaw Island, and even more about the horses that work there!
We decided to splurge and have lunch at the Grand Hotel. They have so many tourists who want to see the world’s longest porch (I think), that they can get away with charging $10 to visit the hotel. It was just under $100 total for lunch at the buffet. Was it worth it? Yes! I felt like I was in another grand era. Did I have the trots by the time I had walked half way back to the marina? Oh, yes!!!!!! Think of the money we saved because I didn’t want anything to eat for the next 24 hours!
We motored 7 miles to Mackinaw City, and spent the night in the state run marina. Nice place. We stayed there for two nights, waiting for favorable winds and weather.
Fabulous dinner on Tuesday night at Audi’s. The bar walls were covered in stuffed critters, everything from bears to buffalo to alligators. I had wanted to have planked whitefish in Michigan, and I was not disappointed!