Mackinaw City and Mackinac Island
Mackinac Island and Mackinaw City (spelled different, pronounced the same – like you ‘gnaw on a bone’) are to Michigan what the Grand Canyon is to Arizona. It’s like the Classic Michigan Vacation (or weekend trip). The place everybody visits, the place you take out-of-towners who are staying with you for a week or two, the ‘must see’ place for the state.
We arrived in Mackinaw City about 6:00 PM or so on Saturday after a full day in Traverse with our 5K run, the Parade and walking around the Festival all day. We were pooped, but excited to be in Mackinaw. We checked into our room which had a perfect view of Lake Huron which was about 50 feet of sand beach from our balcony, unpacked (again…), and hit the town.
To my surprise, Kimberly actually allowed us to hit a store or two and eat dinner before we walked into our first Fudge Shop! Oh yeah, for those of you not from Michigan (though even most non Michigan people know) Mackinaw is famous for Fudge. It’s where it was ‘invented’ and where you get the best of the best (and that part’s true). So after walking around for awhile after dinner, hitting two fudge shops and getting I think six kinds and three pounds, we grabbed a local Michigan Wine and headed back to our room.
We wanted to try every kind of fudge, so there I was cutting a piece off from each block like it was drugs in the 60’s, and I was a junky with anticipation that couldn’t wait! A pretty close description for us actually…. We finished the night sitting on our balcony, eating fudge, drinking wine, watching the sunset on the Lake, and the lights go on the Mighty Bridge.
I woke up early the next day before sunrise. Our room and balcony faced East and I knew the sunrise over the Lake would be amazing. It didn’t fail. I took several pictures you can see of the morning rise over about 5 minutes the change in view and colors is incredible.
After a filling breakfast at the Hotel we were off on the Starline Ferry headed to the Island. Mackinac has no motorized vehicles still (always will be this way I am sure) and the only way to get there aside from a very small plane is the ferries which thousands us ever day. A twenty minute ride or so and we were on Mackinac. Within 20-30 minutes of arriving we had grabbed our bikes and were peddling the first of (what would be) two loops around the island. We did one loop for exercise and one slower with stops and doing the ‘tourist’ thing.
We squeezed about as much as you can in our day on the Island: We biked the loop twice, climbed up and took pictures at the ‘hole in the rock’ (I always forget what that is called), played tourist at about every store, picked up all the souvenirs for everyone, ate more fudge of course, took a ton of pictures, biked on the inside of the Island for a bit (very little people and some great scenery), stopped off at the Grand Hotel, ate more fudge and but more stuff. A full day for sure.
We would have loved another day on the Island (or 10), but by 7:00 or so we were dog tired from the crazy busy 3 days, and were back on the ferry to the mainland. After a great pasta dinner at Nonna Lisa’s we headed back to Grand rapids with our eyes glued to the road trying to make sure we did not make Bambi an orphan.
Lots of PICTURES HERE and video will be coming soon.