Views from the Presidential Suite: Mackinaw City/Mackinac Island

After 4 days on the far reaches of the "mitt" of Michigan I have learned that their is a Mackinaw city and a Mackinac Island. Both are pronounced Mack-i-na with the last letter silent. It appears that back before the days of the zipcode, the two places had to distinguish themselves for the postal service. Hence, Mackinaw City (on the mainland) added a w and dropped the c.

The weather has been beautiful here. Sunny and in the 70s in the day and cool and in the 50s at night. Mackinac Island is reached by ferry. It is quite a tourist attraction; 4 miles long and 3.8 miles wide. Since the late 1800s no motorized vehicles are allowed on the island. All transportation is by bicycle, horse or horse drawn wagon. There are several blocks of tourist shops, 17 fudge shops and 18 bars. There is also a lovely park, a huge hotel called the Grand with the largest porch in the world (built in 93 days @100 years ago, and some beautiful Victorian homes decorated by the most gorgeous flowers. Apparently the horses produce a lot, and I mean a lot, of manure. When turned into compost it fertilizes the flowers. Mackinac receives about 100 feet of snow a winter. Those 500 year-round residents tough it out and cross to the mainland on an ice bridge that forms in the winter. You will see from the attached photos that Zuni went with us to Mackinac. We took a carriage ride, bought some fudge, and basically acted like tourists.

In addition to Mackinac, we drove on a beautiful, windy road along lake Michigan called the Tunnel of Trees. Lake Michigan meets Lake Huron at Mackinaw City. The camping resort that we are staying at is right on Lake Huron. There is a 5 mile bridge that connects the upper peninsula of MI with the lower. People who live in the Upper call themselves "uppers." We drove about 1 hour today on the UP to see Sault St. Marie, the location of locks that connect Lake Superior to Lake Huron. Not too interesting and a really depressed city.

People around here eat lots of whitefish, both fried and smoked, and something called pasties. A pastie is a little hand-held pie containing meat, vegetables, or apples. The only time I had one was in New Zealand.

One more day here and we head back to the UP. We are enjoying ourselves except for some anxiety attacks that hit Zuni several times a day. When this occurs she jumps on the bed and starts digging. She usually does this when we raise our voices, say a swear word, or when she hears a sound she doesn't like. I am not motivated to do my Salus work, but really need to apply myself tonight.