Island Life

July 7, 2022

Today’s adventure itinerary was set by me.  This has been my pick from the very beginning of our trip and I didn’t post about it because I didn’t actually believe it was going to happen.  When we set out for these long trips, I usually set my heart on one place that I’d like to visit.  It seems fair.  There are five or six of us and everyone should get their pick, right?  Today was mine.

Mackinac Island.

Rob and II knew that getting the kids up and loaded into the Jeep at an early hour was a next to impossible feat.  To pull off this trip in a day, we needed to leave by 7:00 AM, drive nearly three hours, take the ferry, and get to the island by noon in order to enjoy the best part of the day.  The only solution was to drive Kevin to Mackinaw City and park in the day lot at the ferry rather than take the Jeep.  This gave the thirteen and under set three additional hours of sleep avoiding the agony of an early morning wake-up.  This is when having a self-contained motor home is clutch – move the home, not the children.  Follow me for more pro-tips on avoiding confrontation with your kids on long road trips.

Kids’ bikes loaded on the bike rack, caffeine in hand, and a route mapped out that hugged the Lake Michigan shoreline, we departed Leelanau Pines at 8:00 AM (So an hour behind schedule, but still doable.).  I like the quiet drives with Rob when the kids are still asleep and we get to chat and observe our surroundings.  The scenery grew more picturesque as we headed toward Mackinaw City (Note: Mackinaw and Mackinac are pronounced the same.  The “aw” spelling has been Anglicized, so it reads it phonetically.  Also, if you pronounce it “mac/in/ack/, it is a dead giveaway that you are not from around here.  I definitely did this.)  Along our route, we passed through the lakeside towns of Charlevoix and Petoskey, upscale, yet quaint with both charming cottages and enormous resort hotels.  Folks really love their lake-life water sports around here.  There is no shortage of boats, jet-skis, paddleboards, canoes, and kayaks.  This is lake life at its best.  Interestingly, Petoskey is known for a special kind of fossilized rugose coral called Hexagonia percarinata, colloquially known as a Petoskey stone.  It’s really a rock and a fossil in one, shaped like a pebble and commonly found in the area which was covered by a warm shallow sea over 350 million years ago.

We arrived in Mackinaw City a little before 1:00 PM, parked in the oversized vehicle day lot and roused the children.  Because we literally brought our home with us, everyone had the proper footwear for bike riding and we headed toward the ferry: two adults, three kids, and three bikes (Rob and I had to rent on the island.).  It’s a whole sixteen minute ride to get out to Mackinac Island.  Off to the left of the ferry, we got a glimpse of the Mackinac Bridge which spans the straits of Mackinac that connect Michigan’s Upper and Lower peninsulas (Mackinaw City and St. Ignace).  It is an impressive five miles long!  Overcast skies were beginning to give way to sunshine. 

As the island came into view, what we first noticed was the Grand Hotel.  It’s a mammoth white structure that stretches out atop the bluffs to face the lakeshore.  It immediately takes you back at least 100 years. My mind went to ladies in white strolling the porch with parasols and straw hats.  The rest of the harbor is dotted with charming homes, a white church, and signs for rentals: bikes, kayaks, and horses.  

Yes, you can rent a horse on Mackinac.  In fact, there are a lot of horses on Mackinac, especially since there are absolutely no motorized vehicles of any kind permitted on the island.  The taxis are horse-drawn carriages!  Both the mail and the garbage services are also delivered using horse drawn vehicles.  These jobs are performed by large draught horses working in teams.  However, one can also rent a horse for personal transportation and there are wooded trails for horses that criss-cross the island. While the absence of car exhaust is refreshing, there is that lingering horsey smell that replaces it.

Besides horses, the other principal mode of transportation is the bicycle.  The streets are clogged with them!  Cruiser bikes, multi-speed bikes, recumbent bikes, tandem bikes, bikes with trailers for babies, for pets, for luggage – you name it, there is a bike on Mackinac for every need!  After lunch (and a couple of beers because the service was so dang slow), Rob and I rented cruiser bikes to join the kids on a trip around the island perimeter.  I wanted a tandem bike, but was denied.  I think we would have been good at it, but Rob wholeheartedly disagreed.  No. Fun. At. All. 🙂

By the time we started out on the 8.2 mile loop around the island, the weather was sunny and bright with a light, cool breeze off the water.  This was my absolute favorite part of the day – just cruising along the flat roads, looking out over the crystal blue waters of Lake Michigan with the wind in my hair. We stopped a few times; once to climb up the steps to Arch Rock, a natural limestone arch, and a couple of times to climb over the rocks and walk down to the rocky beach to skip rocks or feel the lake water.  

The ride around the island was easy, not like riding bikes on Block Island, RI.  Once I took Amaya for a day trip with our bikes and we took one of the scenic loops.  It turns out Block Island is hilly in all directions and instead of a fun girls’ getaway day, it turned into a rigorous workout and sweat-fest.  Horrible.  Definitely rent a mo-ped if you go to Block Island. Bike Mackinac – you will not regret it.

While Kai, Marlie, and I surely enjoyed ourselves, not everyone in our pack was so enchanted.  It turns out IPAs and biking aren’t a good mix for everyone and that dune-climbing had hit some of our party particularly hard and sore legs were a challenge.  However, I am proud to say that we all made it – all 8.2 miles around Mackinac Island in relatively good spirits.  Three of us biked it and liked it.  Two of us just biked it.

Souvenir shopping, ice cream, and fudge rounded out our time on Mackinac Island.  Why is it that resort towns always specialize in fudge?  I mean, who doesn’t love a good hunk of fudge?  It puts everyone in a good mood.  It doesn’t melt.  And everyone can get the flavor they like.  We left with Chocolate Espresso, Chocolate Peanut Butter, and the traditional Chocolate fudge. Y-U-M!  

Windswept and a little sunburned, we boarded the ferry for the return sixteen-minute trip, getting a final glimpse at the Mighty Mac as we left the island behind us.

Rob opted for a highway route to get us back to the campground.  It wasn’t much faster, but it felt more efficient to be on the interstate rather than stopping at traffic signals.  We arrived at the campground just as the last of the daylight was swallowed up – around 9:50 PM.  After a quick dinner of cheeseburgers and a round of Quikkle (what a fun and quick dice game!), the kids took to their bunks and Rob and I sat down with a drink to decompress after a very full day!  This will be our last night at Leelanau Pines.  

Tomorrow we will begin the journey home – with a few fun stops along the way. This isn’t over yet.