B and D – On the Road

Today we went out to Mackinac Island using one of the local ferry companies. We thought we would be efficient and buy the tickets online along with tickets for touring the fort and doing a carriage tour of the island. That did not work out as well as we thought. They said the tickets would available at “will call”. We drove to the ferry location and went to the booth where they sell the tickets. Apparently “will call” is not there, it is at an office at their location in the local town, no where near the harbor. The lady at first said she could not help us then decided to call the main office to see what to do, they looked and found our name on the list and asked her to just confirm in our email that we had bought the ticket. Bruce explained we did not get an email confirmation so we could not provide it. After more phone calls and the lady pointing out we were about the third group with the issue that morning, they finally gave us our tickets but took our phone number in case they had an issue later. Discovered later on the island that the ticket for the carriage tour then had to be turned in at another stop to get the tickets so had to stand in line again. Should have just bought the tickets at the spots we needed them instead of getting them all at one time.

We rode one of the bigger ferries out to the island, took about 40 minutes. The water in the harbor was very clear, you could see down to the bottom rocks and sand.

Mackinac Bridge

water in harbor

Coming into harbor

Coming into harbor

When we got there it was mass chaos with all the bicycles everywhere you turned. I thought I was back in the Netherlands there were so many people on bikes. Every where you turned all you could see were bikes;  regular ones, tandem bikes, three wheeled bikes and bikes set up to pull kids behind. The island does not allow motorized vehicles so you either ride a bike, walk, ride a horse, take a horse drawn carriage they use as taxis, or you can rent a horse and buggy to drive yourself. We decided to walk up to the Grand Hotel and try their lunch buffet. If you are not staying at the hotel you have to pay $10 to enter the grounds but they will then give you $10 credit on your buffet is you eat there.

Grand Hotel from the ferry

Grand Hotel on walk up to it

View of the bridge and geese from close to the Grand

It was a very good buffet and the salad bar/cold foods area is probably the biggest I have ever seen at a restaurant. After eating we are able to tour the public areas of the hotel, went up to the cupola a the top to see the view outside. We even took time to rest on the front porch in one of their rocking chairs.

Bruce on porch at Grand

We later learned that the front porch is the longest covered front porch in the world, the balconies are painted blue to confuse the birds so they don’t try to build nest and that the original part of the hotel (including the porch) was built in 93 days. They have beautiful gardens and their own taxi service which is a horse drawn carriage.

The Grand Taxis

After eating we decided to walk up to Fort Mackinac as it was only 1/2 mile further up the road. It was a bit steep but we decided to give it a try. While on the way up we were curious about what kind of health issues the horses they used to pull the carriages might be having as they seemed to stop a lot to rest on the climb up. Found out later they rest them on purpose as it is a steep climb. Since there are so many horses, you have to have a way to clean up all the mess they leave on the road. There is the manual way, demonstrated by one the many men we saw walking or riding bikes around with their little carts. The there is the big wagon that is pulled by a couple of horses, it not only sweeps it washes the road.

Man cleaning road

Horse drawn road cleaner

There were lots of beautiful flowers through out the city, they even had flowers planted on top of the garbage cans.

Flowers

Garbage can with flowers on top

We made it to the fort and spent a few hours touring it and watching some demonstrations. The fort was founded during the Revolutionary War. There was originally a fort in what is now Mackinaw City but the British moved it to the island in 1780. The fort remained active until 1895.  You can actually see the fort when you are coming into the island on the ferry. At the time we did not realize it was a fort, we could just see a lot of building and the wall around it, high up on the island.

Fort from harbor view

We were able to go in all kind of buildings where they had them set up to demonstrate how they would have been used years ago. We watched a demonstration of how drills were conducted and they had members of the audience join on the parade ground to be trained with the soldiers. After the drills they then did a demonstration of the firing of rifles, very loud.

hospital room

Drill demonstration

Audience being drilled

Rife demo

From the top of the fort you can see an old missionary chapel which we were able to go inside when we were back down in that area.

Missionary Chapel

Chapel from above at the fort

After touring the fort we tried to use our tickets to join one of the carriage tours and found out we could not pick up the tour at the fort with our tickets, we had to turn them in back in town and get a handwritten blue ticket then we could get back on and off the carriage tour at the fort. The driver was nice and let us on anyway but we only rode about 1/3 mile when he stopped and told all the passengers we could get off at that point and take the quick hike downhill to town which was the fastest route or we could stay on the tour and go back up to the location where you had to change carriages to smaller ones that would take you back into town. In town they have to use smaller carriages with only 2 horses as opposed to the bigger carriages pulled by 3 horses. We opted to hop back off and walk down the path to town, what was another 1/2 mile, we had probably already walked 3 miles that day.

We got our tickets swapped and hopped on the 2 horse carriage tour in town which then took us back up to the Grand and the very slow climb up the steep hill to the carriage changing location. We discovered they do have a firetruck and an ambulance that have engines rather than being pulled by horses. We got on the big carriage and headed off across to the other end of the island. On the ride we went through Mackinac State Park. In the middle of the park are the town cemeteries. Originally they were in town but at some point they decided to move them into the park so they would not be the first thing that the tourist saw when they came onto the island. They have a Catholic cemetery on one side of the road and a Protestant cemetery on the other side of the road. They then also have a military cemetery. You eventually get to Arch Rock, a scenic view through a rock arch.

Arch Rock

They also have fire hydrants run all through the park. No fires are allowed in the state park as they have concerns about one getting out of control and due to the heavily forested area the entire island could burn to the ground in 24 hours.

Just before we got back to the fort we passed the camp that is used by the girl and boy scouts. The scout troops alternate weeks during the summer staying at the barracks and providing services to the island in raising and lowering the flags at all the building. We had noticed numerous groups of girls scouts throughout the fort and marching together in different locations. Eventually we were back to Fort Mackinac, which had closed by this time. We rode back to the spot where we got off before and walked back into town. We were able to watch the flags being lowered (it was 6:30 PM). Everyplace you could see an American flag in front of a building they had two girls stationed to lower the flag. Up at the fort you could see what might have been Taps being played by one girl on a trumpet and one playing a piccolo, apparently over a loud speaker. The sound was very different from what you normally hear from a bugle. A trombone does a better job of mimicking a bugle if you use a mute with it. I know this from experience as our son Stephen learned to play Taps on his trombone for a special Memorial Day service at one of the churches in our community. Not sure how he got volunteered for that opportunity but I guess it was his band director while he was in high school. I do remember the countless hours of listening to him practice it while Bruce was helping him learn it. They did not have the written music for Taps for a trombone so Bruce had a recording of Taps and Stephen learned it by ear. It was weeks of practice but he did an excellent job, they had him stand just outside the church with the door open so the sound seemed like it was coming from a distance away.

Scouts ready to lower flag

Our carriage driver/guide for our carriage tour was very good. He shared a wealth of information about the island and the history of the area. They have one community school with only 4 graduates last year. They bring all the horse feed onto the island as there is no place to grow it here.

Wagon taking hay to barns at Grand

Apparently there are 3 deer living on the island and they crossed over from the mainland when the bay was frozen 3 years ago. Normally they go back to the mainland before the bay unfreezes but these deer were too late 3 years ago and have been stuck here since then because the bay has not frozen again. The governor has a summer home of the island and most the guides and workers are only here for the tourist season and they go back to college or to their homes in other areas. You can use snowmobiles on the island in the winter as the horses are all taken off the island in the winter and the snowmobiles don’t touch the roads as they are covered with snow.  All the homes and businesses on the island have street addresses for locating them in emergencies but there is not delivery of mail to those addresses.  Everyone has to go the post office to collect their mail.

Once back in town we decided to head back to St. Ignace and were able to catch one of the fast ferries back, the ones that create huge rooster tails out the back. While they might be faster speeds, it probably took the same amount of time to get back as this ferry did a slight detour to take us over to the Mackinac Bridge and under it before coming back to our drop off location.

Fast ferry with rooster tail

Rooster tail while on the ferry

Rooster Tail

Sun reflection on water on return trip

We had dinner and got some good shots of the sunset, no clouds.

Full Moon