Dodging Horse Poo on Machinaw Island.

Yep..it is EVERYWHERE...and we stood in enough. The smell hits you like a baseball bat to the head as you come out from the Ferry Terminal onto the main street that runs parallel to the Harbor. There are no cars allowed on the roads on Mackinaw Island, so the preferred modes of transport are horse, cart, buggy and bike. Bikes are EVERYWHERE too. In fact, it is all a bit overwhelming, on a Friday morning. Perhaps it was just because this is the last of the summer weekends before Kids go back to school, but people were everywhere too.

We caught the ferry at 5 after 10, this morning. We have watched them coming and going at great speed, just over the breakwater from the marina, and it was our turn to go hell- for- leather between St Ignace and Mackinaw Island via the Mackinaw Bridge. We chose the time because this ferry goes under the bridge before doing a 180 and going back the other way to the Island.
The water was a bit choppy out in the Strait of Mackinaw, but the ferry sliced through it, complete with Rooster tail out the back. We think this is all for the look of it...the rooster tail, that is. Fun, anyway. We sat upstairs, of course, and were fortunate that other people ahead of us blocked all the cold wind, for the most part. It was only in the 60's (F) today, so we went all rugged up...layers!!


I think there used to be a pier here...ya think?:)

 The Light house from the OTHER side of it. The marina entrance is on the other side of the wall.

 Ice and snow play havoc in these parts!...waves might too. We hear horror stories of wave action in the Great Lakes. Weather up here is EXTREME!

 Coming in to dock.

 It was fun watching the docking process

 Seated and ready to go. Those upstairs kept leaving, so cold and windy, was it.

 The ferries go everywhere at such a speed.

 Mackinaw Bridge. 5 miles long and 552ft above the waterline.

 We will go under this bridge when we leave the area..

These ferry captains are so good at what they do. They have the whole routine down pat. It was fun to watch how they maneuvered their craft in tight spaces...often at speed!:)

The trip was made more interesting, as we went under the famous Mackinaw Bridge, by the captain reciting all the facts about the bridge...shall I recite some of them?? 552 feet high at the top of the bridge. It can sway as much as 33 feet in the center span, but the record so far is 22 feet. That's about it for the facts I remember...I was too busy taking photos!

A group of young adults (church group, we later found out) arranged to sing a capella , over the loud speakers. It was a rather impromptu rendition of what I know as a Josh Grobin song...cant remember the title, sorry. A little levity on an otherwise ordinary ferry ride. Love spontaneity in kids:) They huddled around the microphone.

It is funny, as you get into your 'golden years' that it gets harder and harder to estimate the age of young people. I asked the young lady sitting next to me if she was part of a school group...and if they were back at school yet?? She assured me that she had finished school, and this was a church group from all over the USA and beyond. She herself is from New Jersey. She spoke to the young woman in front of me in fluent Spanish, but admitted to being Dutch and fluent in that language also. Her American accent was just discernable as not being pure Jersey!:)

Coming in to the Mackinaw Harbor we were able to make out the huge Victorian homes along the coast, high above the water. Next came one of the great Hotels, the Grand Hotel, Mackinaw. It has the longest veranda of any Hotel in the world, apparently. I can believe it!

This is NOT the entrance to the harbor...you can see rocks under the water in that gap!

The Breakwater

 The Light house at the entry to Mackinaw Island Harbor

We had read that it would cost us $7 to just visit the famous veranda, but when we finally got there, the price has risen to $10, just to go anywhere near the hotel. There is even a 'guard' on the driveway that asks if you are a guest, and if you aren't, then you will have to pay to go and visit the Hotel. Hmmm...oh well, I guess enough people want to do that, but it could also be very disruptive from a guest perspective, if you have paid a lot of money to spend time there and here are all these lookie loos.

I have to make a small side note here...having gotten up to make a cup of tea: What a pleasure it is, when looking out the window, to see such clean, clear water surrounding us. We can literally see the bottom 20 feet under us! How's that for spectacular!!:)

Back to normal programming!

We got off the boat along with the rest of the hoards...full ferry...and exited onto the main street of downtown Mackinaw. The first thing that struck us was the stink! ...that and I nearly walked straight into a stream of horse pee. Waz saved me, of course, lol, but the smell was literally overwhelming. We sought the opposite side of the street in our effort to get away from the smell, but it was all pervasive. Moving right along, we were flabbergasted at the sheer numbers of people, bikes, horses and carriages...as being distinct from each other....some with and some without carriages.

Looking right towards the harbor entry, after we crossed the road. Note all the bikes!

 The hanging baskets and gardens in general were stunning!
(No, I don't  know the family in the background, lol)

 Some of the harnesses were fairly elaborate. This buggy is from the Grand Hotel. Their drivers wear top hats.

 The crowds thinned a bit towards the Marina, on the right, around the corner, somewhat.

Stately homes along the waterfront, facing the marina.

 Looking up the hill towards the Fort, from the waterfront...Marina end.

What a seething mass!:) Not being particularly 'crowd' oriented types, we sought out the less populated Marina end of the harbor, after first discovering that the most evident type of shops were the fudge shops. Some of these date back to the late 1800's. Not sure why a place is defined partly by it's fudge shops, because that is the thing people told us to do, when we arrived..."Go get yourselves some fudge from....!"

We looked at a few menu outside restaurants on the way, and decided finally on a hamburger...we had not had breakfast before leaving the boat, deciding to wait and experience the 'local' food. Our burgers were sad, but we were hungry, so at least Waz ate his...I picked the middle out of mine and left the dry bun! $15 thanks!

We made it to the harbor and walked the planks in the Marina to find 'Panacea', the boat that had been in distress, the day before. We wanted to make sure things were ok. They weren't there but the  pooch was home. The dock neighbors, however, were very chatty...one of them was an Englishman, which amused both of us (him and us!) and we swapped yarns...mostly that he had dared to go as far as Australia and not visited NZ.  He lives in Ohio now!

We left a boat card on Panacea, and went back to the main drag. We sought a Starbucks (which we had spied on our way to the marina) and bought Waz a strawberries and cream Frappucino (despite the fact it was cold outside!) and me a Mocha. We sat and enjoyed it for 15 mins before making our way back to the crowded streets.
One block back from the main drag, we found delightful gardens in private homes and hotels alike.


Even the bathrooms were pretty!

 Lots of shelter on those sweltering days...if they ever happen here!

 Foreign Wars Memorial.

 Would you believe it is the Local Post Office??

and right next door...Not too many Fire-fighters in house!

 But a few cops!

 On the veranda of a private residence

 This is an Hotel...stunning garden!

 I just couldn't resist the hanging baskets. Thought I could borrow one for the boat!!

The post office looked like somewhere you could hang your hat, and the horse carts and carriages tended to be commercial instead of tourist oriented.
Galleries, coffee shops (shoot...why did we go to starbucks??) and other more interesting purveyors of both tasty comestibles and 'things'. We walks up the gentle slope to the T-junction and took the right turn on the way up the long hill to the Grand Hotel.
Being away from the harbor meant being away from the cold wind...so we took a layer off and stowed it in the backpack.

 The Stables

 The White Hydrangeas are common here. Not so the colored ones though.

 We always have to go and see what is around the back!:)

 The Stained Glass window at the front of the church, front inside.

A short way up this road there was a Stables for some of the 400 horses that grace the island, at any one time. There was also a lovely little Stone Church, with beautiful Stained Glass windows. We also loved the garden, and decided to go inside to get a better feeling for the place and hopefully a photo of the windows.
It was very dark inside, which allowed us just the amount of light we needed to get fantastic photos of the Stained Glass. It was wonderful to see a window depicting a scene from the early days of the area....which of course included Missionaries and Indians!

Our ascent of the hill saw us take yet another layer off and stow it. The backpack was getting heavy by now. The end was in sight, and so was the Ice-Cream shop:) . You can see the red and white awnings bottom right.

 Ivy covered topiaries

 The story of the Grand Hotel

 The young woman in red is an Hotel employee who asks everyone if they are guests of the Hotel, and if they aren't, then you have to pay $10 to get past her, and near the Hotel.

 Sadies Ice-cream parlor. Sadie is the Scottie dog! in case you didn't figger that out. Waz getting ready to leave.

 There is a winding path down to the forecourt of the hotel from the IC parlor.

 Sooo pretty, all these flowers.

 The Jockey Club Restaurant. Candy stripe overload, lol.

We seem to be over-indulging in the creamy substance, of late. Cant say I regret it, but the BEST was yet to come:)

The 36 flavors on offer were hard to choose from, but finally, after a couple of taste tests, I decided on the Coconut/Chocolate. Oh dear...died and gone to heaven!!! A single scoop in a waffle cone was HUGE...Should have opted for a single in a cup!
Waz ordered a double scoop in waffle cone of Moose tracks and  something or other cheesecake. Neither of us can remember, even though that was one of my samples, lol. We sat inside in the air conditioning and ate, watching people, of course.
The gardens everywhere are stupendous. I could have taken photos of every single garden and flower, but you might get bored with that, dear reader:) Well, some of you might!

We looked further up the hill (the hotel being half way up the hill) and decided to see where that took us. ....to a cross-roads. Hmmm...where to go?

Looking up the hill...the rest of the way!

 More bikes on the way

 The Stables at the top of the hill.

 Old ladder cart for fire fighting

 Inside the Stables.

 Getting ready to hook them up.

 We chose the Fort!

 The sign post pointed us in the direction of the Fort, so we took that meandering road...very green fields and lovely view over the water...where we met carriages pulled by three horses. We thought these carriages might need 4 horses, but we were obviously wrong. The stables at the cross-roads took our attention first, and we peered into the dark spaces and watched as two young women led a couple of cart horses out to be fitted with their harnesses. On the other side of the building we watched as they completed their task and the driver took off with the cart attached.

I have to interject here with something else....where does all the horse poo go?
Well, we watched four (at last count) people scooping poo and sweeping the street afterwards. This was down by the main drag, but we didn't see these people up where we were walking, and the road was littered with the stuff. We could speculate at how well our garden might grow with some of THAT on it, and perhaps that was the secret to the stunning gardens we were seeing??

Most of the horses we saw were carriage horses. I wont volunteer to name the breeds, there being a couple of different ones...suffice to say they are beasts of burden. We did see a couple of private buggies with fine boned creatures attached, and delighted in the difference and the grace of the latter.

 Pooches and ponies seem to go together.

 Isn't this horse gorgeous!

The long road came to a climax at the top of the hill leading back down to the town, alongside the Fort. We descended with the crowd and stopped to sit awhile on the lawn, over looking the harbor. Being a lovely day, we were now in our shirt sleeves (long) and wishing we had less clothing on. Sheltered was fine, but once back in the wind, we covered up again...including the scarf!

We didn't venture to the Fort...we were rather 'crowded out'. We would much rather spend our time wandering, observing and enjoying what nature has to offer.


I am a little distressed by the apparently HUGE weight that some of these carriages create for the horses, especially going up the steep hills. At least the drivers would stop at the top of the hill, in the shade, to give the horses a minute to rest.  We estimated the average weight of each person riding the carriage is around 150-250 lbs. Large discrepancy there I know. Some people were clearly in excess of 300 lbs! Times that by at least 15-24+ people per carriage, and you have  HUGE weight for these horses.

 25 people can fit on this carriage

 Up and over the hill, down to the waterfront again.

 The baby in orange was having so much fun, on his dad's shoulders.

 Overlooking the Marina

 We sat in the park for half an hour and collected our thoughts and drank some water, all the while people watching and enjoying the afternoon warmth.

After four hours we decided we had seen enough, and again descended the hill back to the waterfront. We caught the 3 pm Ferry back to St Ignace, and were happy to get off.

We stopped at one of the fudge factories and watched the men working the sugar..but still didn't buy any. Our teeth and bodies don't need all that sugar!:)

I forgot to mention the delightful couple we encountered at the queue to get back on the ferry.

Laurie and John had just spent a few days on the island and enjoyed it thoroughly, before the weekend crowds descended. Laurie and I were discussing one of the desserts they had eaten while at the Hotel. It sounded wonderful, but simple. We discussed ways she might bake it at home, herself. Being a Jewelry designer, she had the gift of being able to visualize what I was describing to her. The dessert?? Pear with marzipan in a pastry.  I just might find the time to make one myself! I have two pears in the fridge, even though they are not the right kind for poaching.

We chatted a while in line and again on the top of the boat where we both decided to sit. I had to take a photo of them..so Laurie, if you are reading this, let me know and I will e-mail the photo to you and John:)

We were so happy to get back home and have a cuppa and a break from all the noise and smells. It really is very wearing, all that sensory overload.

I had taken Salmon out of the freezer the night before, and now I could cook it up with the fresh baby carrots I purchased at the farmers market, and some broccoli that needed rescuing, in the fridge.

We had poached salmon with capers and cream and sprinkled the juice from the one lemon I had left, over the carrots and broccoli. Divine, paired with a small serving of NZ Sauvignon Blanc.

Before dinner, we had chatted with another Looper couple, two boats along on the dock. Warren had just been reading comments by Paula Sue, on the Loopers Forum, and there they are! We invited them aboard and spent an hour discussing our pasts, and our plan. We will no doubt see more of them on the Loop as we go down the Rivers.
They are second time Loopers, so we have much to gain from them.

Our evening walk took us along the waterfront and then back through the streets. We happened upon a couple of stores still open at 9pm, and went in to see what they had. We didn't have money with us, fortunately:)

We have some family birthdays coming up, so we are on the lookout for light and simple gifts to send to NZ. My Mom will be 86 this year (September 23rd) and my youngest son will be 23, on the 25th. My Brother's son will be 9 on the 28th, I think...all September! My 1st cousin shares the birth date with my Mom. As I said...lots of birthdays next month.

The day finished well with a pretty pink sunset.
We had to cover up the upstairs, with rain due in the early hours!
Tomorrow does not look good to move, so we are here for another night!:(