Tuesday, August 22: Happy Birthday to Me! I will say, this was the BEST birthday gift EVER--to go on a mini-vacation to one of the most beautiful places on earth (Pure Michigan) with my dearly loved granddaughter! It doesn't get any better than that! Our boat trip took just about 35 minutes. Here we are approaching the island, looking at the GRAND HOTEL from the water. It IS a nice view.
And this little white light ... SO pretty against the blue waters with the bridge faintly showing up behind it ... I love this.
Oh! And this is the Round Island Lighthouse. It is SO TINY against the expanse of water, it almost looks like a toy! I wonder how tall it is?! I'm going to have to do some research!
Gorgeous. You would almost think you were somewhere in Europe ...
The first thing we did when we disembarked was to rent our bikes to traverse the perimeter of the island. Emma rides her bike quite regularly. Me? I honestly haven't ridden any distance on a bike in at least 10 years--and that was only now and then--prior to that, it was probably another 20.
Having been warned by my sister, I decided NOT to go interior with the bikes (too many hills), but just to do the outer rim of the island.
Emma was super patient with me as I jumped off my bike every five minutes to take pictures ...
Arch Rock (below) ...
What a perfect weather day!
Our God is SO awesome ... LOOK at the beauty He has created!
Another angle of Arch Rock ...
The beautiful sparkling shoreline ... magical.
Pristine ...
I HAD hoped this cave would be an adventure; but alas, it was only about 5 feet deep and dead-ended!
It took us about an hour and a half to do the perimeter of the island (because of my annoying interruptions all the time), but we were not in any hurry whatsoever. I could have stayed for hours and hours. I would love to come back and just explore the whole thing, without any time constraint whatsoever. !!
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| One of the many beautiful residences on the island |
We returned our bikes and decided to eat lunch in town. There was a pizza buffet place with a woman beckoning people in with the promise of "free ice cream." I should have known the ice cream would not be the famous delicious, home-made Mackinac Island ice cream. It was definitely brand-x. But we at least were not hungry when we finished eating. I did enjoy a very nice salad there.
We decided to do a bit of walking. I wanted to walk to the Grand Hotel and just mosey about the place for awhile--because that would be so fun.
We were pretty tired, our feet were killing us. We passed by this horse and buggy and visited with the horses for awhile. Curly is the horse on the right ... I cannot remember the lefty's name.
We walked into the Little Stone Church, where it was nice and cool.
We finally made it to the summit of the Grand Hotel, but were met by a woman with her hand opened for $10 each for us to go any further. We were a little bit indignant! We declined, and turned back around and walked back to town. Emma had suggested taking a horse taxi ($5 each and would have been very well worth it!) to the hotel, but I told her we were NOT chimps and we could certainly walk it! Boy, did I regret that decision!
I WILL say, the Grand Hotel is a wonderful sight to behold; I'm still ticked that they charge people just to come up and take a look. Perhaps they want to discourage people from gawking at the hotel residents!
We went in some cute little shops on the island but decided to take the boat back to the mainland at 3:30 so that our evening would be open to have dinner and get back to Dark Sky Park before dark ...
Leaving the harbor ...
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