sharynk02: Mackinac Island 2013

Wednesday, May 7, 2013

Bright and early, well no so bright – it was 4:30AM. Vicky and I headed to the airport. We were on our way to Mackinac Island. Just us girls and we were excited. Tired, but excited.

our luggage leaving the dock

Mackinac; pronounced Mack in naw. Latitude and Longitude; 45N84W. Elevation 110’. It is located in Lake Huron just above Michigan.

Fort Mackinac was built in 1780. It was built to protect the US from the British. It was not built with the smartest of people engineering it. It faces south and has no protection to the North. The British simply attacked from the North and there was not a chance of defense whatsoever.

Our expedition took us to Atlanta for a plane change, then to Detroit for another plane change and then to Pellston, which is on the very top part of MI. From the Pellston airport we grabbed a shuttle to the port. This was a 45-minute ride. Once at the port, we embarked on a ferry for yet another 30-minute ride across the Great Lake. AT LONG LAST, somewhere around 12.5 hours later we stepped onto Mackinac Island.

Taxi

We were exhausted but eager to explore. The island wasn’t ‘opening’ for another 5 days so we knew we would be able to go to places without crowds.

Hotel not yet opened

The island allows no vehicles. (There is only one Police car, one Ambulance and one Fire truck.) Everyone there either rides a bicycle or takes a horse and buggy. It puts you back in the early 1900’s without uncertainty. Everything that is desired on the island is taken over by ferries and then placed on horse drawn wagons for delivery.

Without delay we rented bicycles. We got on our bicycles and headed to our hotel. It was 1 1/2 miles down the road. We checked in and decided to ride the island a while. The whole island is merely 8 miles in circumference.

Ft Macinac

Our hotel was set on the Eastern side of the island and considered out of town. After checking in, we rode our bikes back towards town and took it all in. We then headed around the perimeter. Once back around to our hotel we decided to see if our luggage had been transferred from the ferry to our rooms. They weren’t. Remember, horse and buggy take them. We made a drink and headed back into town.

Even after a full day of traveling, we rode the island’s entirety. It is spectacular! Some of the stops along the way on our bikes were; Sunset Rock, British Landing, and Arch Rock.

Arch Rock

For dinner we landed at the Sea Biscuit Bar and Grill. This soon became our very favorite place on the island. We sat at the bar and made friends immediately. Our bartenders name was Wayne and before we knew it we were calling him ‘the serial killer’. I explained to him that 69% of serial killers have the middle name of Wayne. He laughed because Wayne WAS his middle name. His first was Michael but everyone called him Wayne. It was a lot of fun to have our very own serial killer. The second bartender was Courtney. She was a doll.

Tom, Kelvin & Mike

Beautiful Church

We had dinner at the bar that evening and a couple of locals bought it for us. We made friends with some workers that were wallpapering the hotels for their grand openings and since only locals and the help were on the island, Vicky and I did a great job of livening things up a bit.

Kelvin, Tom, Mike, and Terry were our homies for the next 4 days. Kelvin, Tom and Mike did painting and wallpaper while Terry was one of the only 2 nurses on the island. She gave us a tour of her clinic and explained how so many people who haven’t ridden a bicycle in 25 yrs. decide to come over and get on one and just go for it. The injuries are endless.

view from our room

Terry, our Nurse friend

The next day we elected to take a buggy ride throughout the island and get the scoop on all the places we stopped at the evening before. Again, since everyone was in practice mode, we got the full gamut of information and personality.

moving day

When we got off our hour and a half tour we proceeded over to the Grand Hotel. This hotel is what truly made Mackinac Island infamous. There was a film made here in 1979 starring Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour. It is called ‘Somewhere in Time’. They do a very very good job of keeping you in the time period of the film. (Early 1900’s). It is amazingly beautiful!

The Grand Hotel from the ferry

The room rates start out at $650 a night so we did not stay there, but we did pay the $10 to enter and look around.

Up Close

Magnificent is how describe it. It houses the longest covered veranda in the world. After 5pm ladies and gentlemen (even if you are a guest) must wear evening attire. Ladies in pants suits or dresses and men in a jacket and tie. In addition all non-guests are asked to leave the premises not later than 6pm.

On the top floor of the hotel is a bar called Cupola. It offers a picturesque view of the lake and the bridge to the UP. (Upper Michigan). I started out drinking coffee at the bar, but my partner in crime had a mojito and before you knew it – we both had 5 each! We were the only patrons in the bar along with just the bartender for practically 2 hours. There were a lot of laughs. We made friends everywhere we went. Once more, there were scarcely any visitors on the island excluding for us.

view from the Cupola Bar

That night we ended back at the Sea Biscuit. There were several other restaurants and bars to explore, but we had so much fun the night before we simply reasoned that we would stop in for a quick drink and then discover another establishment.

That didn’t happen. All our cronies from the previous night were there and once again we were there until after 2am. This visit we made friends with the manager, Jim. He had a good time with all of us.

diningroom in the Grand Hotel

Friday morning started out hopeful. We were told the temperatures were going to drop from high 60’s into the 40’s and it was going to rain. The morning was clear, sunny and not too cold so we ventured out.

We shopped most of the day with every intension of hitting this one particular restaurant called…The Family Restaurant. It is notorious for it’s fish dinner served on a platter, big enough for two. Well, that didn’t happen either! What a surprise! Something about the Sea Biscuit kept drawing us in.

One of the lobbies

Cupola Bar

However, we did not have dinner at the Sea Biscuit that night. We went to a BBQ rib place. I only have a few recollections about dinner that night but Vicky said the ribs fell off the bone and we had to eat them with a fork. Obviously dinner was late in the evening.

Tea Room

After dinner and re energized, we headed over to the Pink Pony. It is a bar with live music. It was half full and we chose to dance even though no one else was. We thought we’d get the crowd going. Well, that also didn’t happen. We looked like a bunch of old ladies making fools of ourselves. We had one drink and left. We laughed a lot, at ourselves.

The subsequent place we headed to was The Horn. Terry, the nurse, was meeting us there with her girlfriends. Low and behold, our wallpaper guys were there too. What a fun, fun time. The Horn also had a live band. We danced and drank, and laughed and danced, and danced until we couldn’t dance anymore. It was a Blast!!!!

One of 17 fudge shops

Keep in mind this ‘town’ is all within less than a mile on Main Street so bar hopping is simply going from one establishment next door to another. Kind of like New Orleans. Bar, after Bar, after restaurant, after shop, after hotel, after bar.

Once out of the Horn the Sea Biscuit was staring us in the face. The Horn was directly across the street. We HAD to go say goodnight to our two favorite bartenders. HIC!

Courtney made me a Mackinac Ice Tea. Comparable to the LI Iced Tea with vodka, tequila, rum and everything else, - it did me in…

Courtney & a Mackinaw Iced Tea

Vicky, Kelvin & Wayne (our serial killer)

Earlier that afternoon walking through our hotel lobby I found a $20 bill and was telling Courtney about it while she was preparing my nightcap. Above and beyond a normal tip, I gave her the bill to split with Wayne for being so good to us and because I was drunk and we really liked these guys. They worked extremely hard and were so much fun.

this was our vision for 4 days!

We had to walk home that night because they give DWI’s on bicycles. HA! Can you visualize? How much trouble can you get in - on a bike - on a tiny island - being drunk - except falling over and laughing your ass off! But – Terry notified us of some cops just waiting down the street for some drunks to come by. Of course we would not have even noticed a pink Rhinoceros in the middle of the street at that point. So we took her advice and walk we did. Just over a mile to our beds. The streets were empty and quiet except for me and Vicky laughing our butts off recalling the evening! It was a great time.

Saturday rolled around and now it’s raining and certainly cold. It was in the low 40’s and miserable. We intended on going back to Mackinac City early in the evening (taking the ferry back to the main land), because we had a 4:30 am shuttle to the airport on Sunday. We had breakfast in a little place called The Chuck Wagon We knew that our new found friends frequented this place so we purchased gift certificates for their breakfasts for the next time they came in. We didn't tell them!

Downtown

We were spent and ready to go home. Neither one of us could eat or drink or walk any longer. We stopped in the Murray Hotel to check out their world famous gourmet fudge factory. It is amazing what kinds of fudge you can have. They have Creamsicle fudge! Yum!!!

It rained the entire day so we plummeted down on a couch in the lobby and both put our feet up on the coffee table. We were just simply DONE!

We promised our newfound friends we would meet them for one more drink at 5 at the Sea Biscuit before we caught our ferry at 7. We were half asleep on the couch when this sweet, crickedy, wobbly old lady with a cane came over to us and sat in the chair besides us. Vicky and I looked at each other like – please lady, don’t talk to us, were too tired. Well, guess what? She started talking and talking and talking. It turned out that the Murray Hotel was her home. She OWNED the hotel and the coffee table that our feet were on…..oops!

deep-fried Mac and Cheese

We both, very gingerly, pulled our feet back down to the floor and sat up to have a conversation with her until her husband came to get her for dinner. She was very sweet and was very proud of her hotel. It was beautiful and the halls were lined with artwork painted by her husband.

We had yet one more drink consumed at the Sea Biscuit and said our goodbyes. We then headed to the ferry. Once over on the mainland we went to Dixie’s for dinner and hit the sack. Vicky had booked us a hotel prior and thank GOD she did.

4:30 came early. We packed up and walked extremely rapidly to the main office across the parking lot for our shuttle to pick us up. It was dark, raining, cold and windy. The lobby was closed. We had to trek back to our room in the cold, dark rainy and windy weather, back across the parking lot, with our luggage, freezing our Asses off. Once again, what we thought would happen, didn’t!

Eventually the shuttle showed up and took us to the airport.