Movin' on U.P.

For the last 30 summers, I have had the pleasure of vacationing at my family's cottage in Frankfort, Michigan.  To save you the trouble of Google Mapping that, here's a diagram of Michigan with Frankfort clearly marked in blue ink:

Please ignore the confused expression Quixx is giving me, he must have failed geography

As you can tell, Frankfort is fairly far north, and it is officially part of "northern" Michigan.  However, there is a lot more Michigan north of Frankfort...but in 30 years I have never seen it.  Every year we say we're going to go, but then we get to the cottage and we start doing all the fun things you do at the cottage (like go to the beach, drive the boat, climb sand dunes, eat ice cream, watch dumb shows like Storage Wars and Duck Dynasty...annnnnnd, that completes the list.)  But Patrick and I decided to take a trip to the U.P. earlier this year, and for once we actually followed through with our plans.  Well, almost.

Due to some circumstances out of anyone's control, we had to shorten our planned trip down to just a day trip to Mackinac Island.  But what a day it was!  Here are the highlights:

Mighty Mac vs. the Antique Tractors

During our 3 hour trip up the coast of Lake Michigan, the radio station we were half listening to mentioned something about tractors on the Mackinac bridge.  It was one of those things where you kinda hear part of it and think, "I wonder what that means?"  Well when we hit I-75 and saw the bridge in the distance...we also saw tractors.  LOTS of tractors.  Apparently the regional antique tractor show was being held in St. Ignace (the town across the bridge) the next day, and those tractors have to get there too, right?  Patrick spent most of the ride across the bridge with his head out the window taking pictures of the tractors and telling me how much our son would love this.  Like father, like son...

The Grandest Grand Hotel

There is a historical hotel on Mackinac Island which is simply called "The Grand Hotel."  They charge you (and according to this sign, maybe judge you a bit too) to even walk on the property.  Since I love to act fancy and put on airs (come on, every girl likes to do this occasionally, right???) I decided that we were going to spring to not only walk around the grounds, but also to eat lunch in the Main Dining Room.  It was totally worth it...but perhaps the best part of the whole experience had nothing to do with the hotel itself.  The elegance of the hotel is a little overwhelming, like perhaps they made a mistake by letting riff-raff like us in here...so while I was busy feeling like we didn't belong, the hostess tried to seat us at a table far away from the windows (I am sure not intentionally).  If you know either Patrick or me, you know that we are the type of people who do not like to draw attention to ourselves and hate to "bother" others by making requests.  But on this day, knowing how special this experience was to me, my typically anti-boat rocking husband spoke up and asked politely if we could have a window seat.  We are not romantic, but it's times like this that I know why I married this man.  *Swoon* 

Thanks to Patrick, this was our lunchtime view!!

When the desserts are this small, you know it's fine dining.  They probably didn't mean for me to get 3 platefuls though...

 

Tandem-ness

The island has no motorized vehicles; only bikes, horse-drawn carriages, and your own two feet are allowed.  I have always wanted to try a tandem bike, but alas Patrick and I are the most uncoordinated couple in America, so he kept insisting it was a bad idea.  Once we got to the bike rental place however, I started begging and he eventually gave in after I pointed out that renting two bikes for an hour would be $10, but renting a tandem would only be $9.  Sometimes you just have to know which buttons to press...

As soon as I snapped this picture Patrick said, "What are you DOING?!?  Stop it NOW and hold on please!!"  To be fair to him, we weren't doing a particularly good job of balancing...to be fair to me, I was having a blast and I wanted picture evidence of him riding this bike.  So I took a few more pictures and then stopped.  We eventually got the hang of it and peddled the perimeter of the island.

 

 *Departure Time Will Go Under the Bridge (weather permitting)

This asterisk accompanied the 6:30 pm ferry on the printed schedule we received before we took the ferry over...and it was the only asterisk that appeared that day.  So of course, I wanted to be on that ferry.  Despite the fact that we easily could have made the 5 pm ferry, Patrick acquiesced and we stuck around the island until 6:30, filling the time with activities that Patrick loves, like shoe shopping and eating over-priced fudge.  And then at 6:30, we boarded the ferry with the other 12 people who decided to visit northern Michigan on a 50 degree Friday in September and off we went!

 

 

 

The middle 2 lanes of the bridge are grating...those black things are cars!

In conclusion, I had a fantastic day and I think Patrick did too (even if he won't admit it).  Maybe I should learn from this and not wait 30 more years to make it up farther north to the next place on my list.  But if there happens to be a Duck Dynasty marathon on, I wouldn't bet on it...