road trippin part 3: bay view, mi to mackinac island, mi

Day 5 started with the best of intentions. I got up early, did the dinner dishes at the pump (which was against the rules, shhhhh), and sat with the pups on the shore all before David got up. At this point I was going to get going on a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and banana chocolate-chip pancakes and then follow that up by a quick run, but somehow I winded back up in the tent taking a little nap (letting the waves lull me to sleep was clearly too enticing). By the time I got up there was only time to make that delicious breakfast and tear down camp for our next part of the trip.

We loaded up the car (all the no-longer-needed camping gear crammed in the trunk), combined our necessities to 1 backpack + 1 kennel, and hit the road. All by about lunch time... 

The drive from the campground to St. Ignace where we parked and caught the ferry was just over an hour. By 1:00 we were sitting on the ferry, after being lucky enough (so said the ferry employee) to see the Governor of Michigan disembark from his ferry (perhaps he was coming back from a weekend away at his governor's residence on Mackinac? Lucky Michigan governors...)

Up until this point in the trip we had had pretty good weather (except the 6 hour down pour), lot's of sun, just maybe a little too hot at times. However as soon as we got on the ferry to Mackinac it was obvious the weather was not going to cooperate. The fog and drizzle set in and funny enough would not leave until we stepped off the ferry the next day.

Because we had almost no cell-reception or wifi the entire trip, and because I forgot to write it down, we were unsure if our check in at Mission Point Resort on Mackinac was at 3 or 4. But we figured we only had a day on the island, so we would get there early, hope for an early check in, and if not, stash our bags and walk around. And of course we had to do this as cheap as possible. So we opted not to have our bags automatically valeted to our hotel from the ferry for $6. It was only a 15 minute walk and we had just the backpack and kennel so it was no big deal. We get to the resort around 2, and find out check-in is not til 4 and, of course, or room was not ready yet. I was standing outside with the dogs at this point and did not hear the whole discussion, but basically we ended up not stashing our bags because most people get the valeted over from the ferry, not drag them through town themselves... so there we were at the resort, in the drizzle, having not showered in 2 days due to lack of running water, toting our bags around. We decided to go sit on the lawn and make the best of it, as exploring the area with 2 dogs and 2 bags was a little too ambitious. We looked a little homeless.

We spent the next few hours taking turns exploring the shore or holding the dogs/ watching the bags and, after the rain really picked up, playing some more Chinese Poker in a little pagoda. Finally 4:00 rolled around and we could check in. We (obviously) had dogs so we were relegated to the Straights' Lodge, presumably the less nice of the two lodges available at the resort, but still plenty comfortable. At least the puppies approved and got to frolicking on and between the beds immediately.

Now it was time to shower, finally, and get ready to ditch the pups and enjoy a nice meal at a restaurant. We left back for town around 5:00pm, and it's still sprinkling, which makes me fairly crabby- why would I spend that time blow-drying my hair just to have it get rained on? And of course we were too cheap for the $5/person horse-drawn taxi. But a quick 15 minute walk later, and a $6 dollar umbrella, and I was "as happy as a clam" for the rest of the evening. We spent a little over an hour perusing the shops, getting souvenirs, before we decided it was dinner time. We ended up at the Pink Pony, a restaurant on the water that David had picked even before we got there, and where one of my sorority sisters and her cousins had spent many summers working. Dinner (and the drinks) were delicious, but unfortunately my sorority sister's cousins were off that evening so we couldn't say hi.

Too cheap for another round of drinks at the bar, we head back to the resort with some Michigan beer and an individual glass of wine (who knew they sold those?!) to enjoy the evening on the lawn, looking out over Lake Huron. Pretend these next pics are really artsy.

The next morning, having seemingly spent half our money for the trip the night before on dinner and souvenirs, we opted to forgo the bike rental and run around the island instead. There was one main road, that went around the island in an 8-mile loop. This is how we crammed all our Mackinac site-seeing in:

Now having at least seen the whole island, we clean up in the room before checking out  and then proceed to lug the bags and the dogs back to town (this time we stash the bags with the ferry company). We enjoy our last few hours on the island getting a few more souvenirs (fudge) and lunch eaten on a bench. At this point I would just like to throw in the observation that the puppies were doing very well surrounded by all those horses (apparently over 900 on the island) and bikes and apparently if you travel with your dogs it is an open invitation for strangers to come up and tell you about their dogs. We talked to so too many people about their canines at home (and had countless others come up and ask to pet Winston and Franklin), David even had his picture taken by strangers who were trying to capture a pic of Winston and Franklin... seriously are people crazy or just rude?

By 1:30pm we are back on the ferry to St. Ignace, and by 2:00pm on the road to Lansing and the sun is shining again. Just about 24 overcast hours on Mackinac and we spent about 40% of our entire trip's budget... but really we're glad we went, it's somewhere you have to go once (if you live this close) and somewhere we might even go back, just not anytime too soon.