Great Lakes Tour – Day 11

WHERE: Mackinaw Island

WEATHER: Started out cloudy & COLD, cleared as the day went on, 51*, mitten & hat weather!

We sleep in until 7:30, have breakfast and ready for the carriage tour at 9:45. Everything in this town is done with horses. In the peak season they have 500 horses. Now they have only 120, they ship them off the island for the winter because there is no feed for them. It is very expensive to ship hay over for them. The horses are mostly Persians, in three different sizes – small, medium and large. We have two medium size mares pulling our carriage.

Horses and carriages stopped at Arch Rock.

We make a stop at Arch Rock.

Our next stop was to the “Grand Hotel”. It truly is GRAND. We are treated to lunch here, a huge elegant buffet with linen & china table settings. We go up to the Cupola Bar after lunch to enjoy the view.

We walk through the hidden garden and see all the pretty plants. They have a staff of 7 that just maintain the gardens, we talk to some of them working in the garden.

We walk back down to Main Street. We think about renting a bike to look around some more, but end up doing it on foot. We walk through the trees up to a lookout overlooking the town.

Church with harbor, lighthouse and boat in background.

We return to town and decide to taste some of the town’s renown fudge.

We can’t decide on just one kind so get three different ones. We enjoy talking with the young guy making the chocolate. To end the day we join others in the lobby for a little ‘Happy Hour’ and then go with Jim & Dorothea and Shirley & Kenny for a small dinner. Mackinaw Island was a fun place to see.