The Lady on the Lake? More like the Hussy on the Huron

I don't always know where I am going. This is due to a number of reasons, foremost being my notorious lack of direction. If it were not for Google Maps, I would never make it to any destination on time ever. But there is another reason that I am often "lost". I don't bother reading my schedule as closely as I should, meaning that when work has me flying into, say, PLN airport, unless I am going to stay there for any extended period of time, I am not looking up that airport code. Therefore, when my schedule changes and I now have a full day in this PLN place, I'm at a bit of a loss.

So I look it up: Pellston, Michigan. Nope, still means nothing.  More investigation reveals that it is near Mackinaw City.  That is now two places I have never heard of.  This is where you go to take the ferry to go Mackinac Island. By this point, I am wondering if I am being trolled?  Are these real places?  And if so, why didn't they pick one spelling for this Mackinaw/ Mackinac place and stick with it? What Northern Michigan fuckery is this?

But we had arrived early in the day and had been gifted with free ferry tickets so any ideas of sleeping after working all night were abandoned as we set off to see what one of my friends had dubbed Micki-weeki Island.

Our hotel, set right upon Lake Huron provided us with some information, namely that the island had no cars and that to see the island, we needed to either rent a bicycle or take a tour aboard a horse drawn carriage. So horse, it was...

The longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere.

My first impression on entering the island was that had been transported to somewhere in New England. But with more fudge.  As in actual fudge, not the very prevalent amount of horse poop that could also be found all over.

When your hotel shuttle has eight legs...

I honestly don't know why but every other store was a fudge shop.

The town was picture postcard perfect, a fact that was not lost on the multitude of tourists that had descended upon on it on this sunny day.  We got lucky in getting there early as the carriage tours were booking up quickly.

The tour itself, consists of two parts.  The first part, you go through the city itself and pass the Grand Hotel, which is apparently a big deal.  For this fairly level part of the tour, you get a carriage with two horses.

Traffic, Mackinac-style

Throughout this part of the tour, you get to see a lot of perfectly restored Victorian houses, as well as some pretty spectacular scenery.

The Grand Hotel.  They charge to enter and take a look so this is as close as we got.

Eventually you reach a juncture where you get off the carriage, walk through some shops and then board a 3 horse carriage to travel to the steeper more remote parts of the island.

Following that, you return to the same shopping/ carriage switching spot and do the same in reverse.

There is always that one dude who cracks himself up..

Once the tour was over, it was still pretty early in the day, so we decided to explore the city on foot...

and to stop at a bar or two along the way.

This of course led to more bar stops and eventually to us taking the ferry back across and deciding to jump into our hotel's mini water park. All in all, this would have been a prefect end to a wonderfully unexpected day but we were not done. Not by a long shot.  

Once the hotel's park closed,  we were now nearing 48 hours with no sleep and had done our substantial part to support the Michigan craft beer scene and felt that the fun must continue.  This is when the hotel desk clerk suggested we go swimming in the lake itself.  Now, I don't know if she actually expected four Floridians to go running into 50 degree water in the middle of the night, but once the idea was out there, there was no taking it back. So if you were one of the many people on the beach huddled around the bonfire who witnessed this spectacle, please know that we expected none of this.  We had no idea about Micki-weeki island and how lovely it was.  We did not know that the water park would be closing at 10pm.  And we sure as hell did not know how fricking cold that lake would be.