MI Time Machine

Finally, a (brief) summary to go with my far too long list of pictures. And no, I still haven't flipped them all right side up. I'll get to that.

While home in Michigan, I spent something resembling two days at Mackinac Island with a very assorted group of people.. that being my family. That being, myself, my brother, his fiance, my mom, a friend of my mom, my father's mother, three dogs, and a fish that traveled in a water bottle. For the record, though I do want a dog or two once I finally settle down somewhere, I think I will almost certainly never travel with one. It's a bit limiting on what you can accomplish, in every way from making sure the hotels, restaurants, and any indoor or ticket-taking sites you want to visit allow dogs, to just stopping every so often to let them rest. I'm much more willing to make such accomodations for other people than for the pets. The fish was much easier to deal with; we only had to find him ice cubes once in a while. But putting the aside aside...

We used the Star Line ferry to get onto the island, which offers a ten dollar discount for every three adult tickets purchased at one time. Nice ferry, short ride, many views of water and shore lines and the Mackinac Bridge. In fact, they even use the cool hydrojets that shoot water up in the air behind you so it looks like you're going really, really fast.

We stayed at the Mission Point Resort, which proved to be an interesting experience. If I have any complaint about the hotel, it's my luck in finding two employees to deal with who were both extrememly nice, did everything they possibly could to try and accomodate us when we needed to make changes or had problems, and had a horrible aversion to writing anything down that kept causing said problems. Aside from that, the resort is huge, the rooms were a bit on the small side but very nice, one of our rooms was an amazing two room suite (free, as an appology for previously mentioned problems), and for people looking for a resort experience (we weren't, and only spent the night there), offers quite a few different options such as massages, wine tasting, various events, a pool and hot tub, and a list of other things that I don't remember as I personally didn't care about them. Oh, and free wireless, in case you're taking an online class and happen to decide to take a test while on the island. Word has it the connection can be a bit slow though. No air conditioning, but that's common across the island and comes only as a special amenity in some of the hotels, and they do provide fans that worked well enough for everyone in my group.

The island itself was interesting but very touristy, at least the main strip which due to time constraints we were unable to wander away from. We saw one of the four historic parks (Fort Mackinac), which is sufficiently large to occupy an afternoon by itself and contains many different buildings with historic displays throughout. There are also frequent re-enactments of things; troops with rifles at intervals throughout the day, and we also saw part of a court marshall, heard period music, and my brother and I participated in a quick dance demonstration. There are some excellent views of the harbor and the bridge, and one place we stopped for cold drinks and dessert later - the Tea Room - contains a long row of tables stretching across the top of the hill so that you look out over the main strip, the harbor, and the lake while you eat. Of the fifth park, this one natural, I personally saw only a small portion when the younger of the group wandered off and visited Arch Rock around midnight. Judging by the pictures my mom took when the saner members of the group wandered off that way in the morning instead, the view of the land is more impressive in daylight, but the view of the stars was one of the best I've seen at night and worth the interesting trip there (okay, so one of us had seen a horror movie a couple days earlier, one of us has an entire Stephen King collection and an extremely active vivid imagination, and the third of us elected to make animal noises in the background.. I'll let you sort out who is who).

Enough general review. We spent little time walking around, lots of time eating meals and snacks and ice cream, bought fudge (of course!), and overall enjoyed the ability to walk on roads with only bikes and a few carriages to worry about and the lack of motor-type sounds. Were it not for the extremely touristy aspect, I think I would have liked it enough to wish to live somewhere similar; I've always been happier when able to get along without cars, you could walk to any store on the island you needed to get to if you didn't want to take a carriage, and there are plenty of forest-y areas to explore if you have time. Oh, and the Catholic church there (St. Anne's) has a very nice appearance.. though I do decline to make further judgement without having been to a service there.

I think that covers necessary reviews and any highlights. Other highlights are still being eaten, having thankfully survived the trip to TX, and also hiding in my freezer until I'm ready to hand out/eat the second round. Fudge, people. Lots and lots of fudge, in 13 different flavors (there are more, but I resigned myself to only 13 - I have lots of self control like that).