Mackinac Island

We started the day with blueberry pancakes at 7a at a cozy little restaurant in town and then took the horse & buggy tour of the Island.  That's us on the far right last row.

On the tour we saw a steam fire engine.  Also a hurst that is still used here.

This is the East side of the Island.

This is called Arch Rock

Stone Church made from Island stones.

This is main street today... very busy with lots of tourist that take the ferries over to this Island... easier to walk down the middle of the streets than try to get through the crowds on the sidewalks.....and it is not even the weekend!

There are flowers everywhere!  As we ate our breakfast early we saw a horse drawn buggy equipped with water and a man that was using a sprinkler attachment to water all the downtown flowers... no wonder nothing looks wilted!

Even the horse stables have flowers.

They require the residents to paint their houses each year and all the private homes have gorgeous yards.   Here is a pretty house!

The town is only about 6 blocks long but in those 6 blocks are 17 fudge shops!  The most delicious fudge!!

The Grand Hotel

The grounds at the hotel were beautiful.   Here are just a few photos.  The view from the center of the porch.

 Yes, I had to buy a ticket to walk on the porch and try out those comfy rockers.

Flowers on the drive to the front steps of the Hotel.

And hedges cut like horses on the front lawn.

All along the porch are planters with real geraniums and on the inside the carpet also has geraniums.

Here is a photo of the famous LONG porch.  It is the longest covered porch in the world.  AND you can play a game of chess if you get tired of sitting in one of those 100 rockers.

There is a fort here right up on the hill above the marina but we didn't have time to tour it.... we can hear them playing “Taps” at night and during the day we hear the canons being demonstrated.... took a bit of getting used to....

We are praying for seas to be calm tomorrow as we venture out into Lake Michigan to Beaver Island... right now the report is for 10 to 15 MPH winds and only 1 to 2 ft waves.  For those of you watching our progress on the tracker it has stopped working and we are in touch with the Delorme folks to try to fix the problem.