Day 4 – Mackinac Island

I slept hard last night, in this comfortable bed, in this quiet room, and woke up to stunningly beautiful blue skies.

After a quick bite to eat on the hotel’s sprawling front porch, we picked up boxed lunches from the dining room, then set out on rented bikes to explore the island.

We had been hoping to circumnavigate the island on the 8-mile Lakeshore Road, but apparently a good chunk of the road collapsed last year, making half of it inaccessible.  So, we followed a route that Natalie had planned out after consulting a local map and guidebook, criss-crossing the island on wide paths that wind through groves of cedar and fir, and meadows fringed with yarrow and northern rose; along bluffs crowned with stately Victorian-era summer cottages; and along the half of the ring road that is still intact, where we found a shady lakefront spot just off the bike trail and pulled off for lunch.

This island, and its little village are Anne-of-Green-Gables quaint. I expect to turn a corner to find a boy white-washing a picket fence, or two bonnet-clad women sharing raspberry cordial on a front porch, or a young dairymaid swinging buckets overflowing with milk. It’s bucolic and charming and lovely. 

But it’s also very, very touristy. The four-block strip of main street -- which has no fewer than seven fudge shops and saloons that pump out player piano music onto the sidewalk -- has a certain wild-west quality to it in its lawlessness. Since there are no cars, pedestrians feel at liberty to walk down the middle of the road, or to cross to the other side on a whim, without looking for oncoming traffic. Meanwhile flocks of bicycles clog the streets, and zip back and forth in front of the horses, who are such seasoned professionals that they don’t seem to notice the chaos. (Also, a horse probably knows that she has an approximately 1,400-pound weight advantage over any biker that crosses her path, and she would probably come out ahead in any scuffle.)

The bike path around Mackinac is the interstate freeway of bike trails, if the interstate freeway was a freaking free-for-all with pedestrians, joggers, preschoolers on bikes, families riding four abreast, horse-drawn carriages, mobility scooters (Fun fact: Mobility scooters are one of the few exceptions to the island’s no-motorized-vehicle law) and roller bladers, piles of horse manure, riders swerving to avoid the horse manure, and a complete disregard for lane designations, traffic patterns or directional signals.  I’m surprised we made it out of there alive. And needless to say, Mackinac does not seem to be experiencing a shortage of visitors during the Covid crisis.

After four hours on the bikes, we split up. Clare went off to explore on her bike on her own, Charlie and Natalie went back to their hotel room to relax, and Keith and I spent the rest of the afternoon staying socially distant at the outdoor pool.

Before we embarked on this trip, Keith and I pledged to avoid indoor dining. If we eat at a restaurant, we will be sitting outside. Unfortunately, formal dining room at the Grand Hotel is indoor-only. So, tonight we got dressed up in our fancy duds, but then just sat on the front porch for drinks and hors d’oeuvres. The kids went inside later to order room service. Keith stayed on the porch with his book, and I went to our steerage-class room in the back of the hotel to work on the blog. As I write, I can hear the boisterous jokes and laughter of the kitchen staff as they dump glass bottles into the bins. It’s such a striking, refreshing contrast from the polite tittering on the front porch.

The Grand Hotel's main lounge

We leave tomorrow morning for Pictured Rocks National Seashore in the Upper Peninsula. I had booked a guided kayak tour there, but got word this evening that the trip is canceled due to 2- to 4-foot waves on Lake Superior. (Charlie’s reaction was, “That’s even more of a reason to go!”) It’s a total bummer, but at least we can me more flexible with our schedule tomorrow. Still, we’ll try to leave kind of early, so we can make the most of our time at Pictured Rocks. 

Truly, today was a stunning day, and really fun and relaxing. We felt like we had a chance to really see Mackinac Island at its best. Now we’re ready to move on to other adventures.