Mackinac Island revisited
Last weekend Aaron's parents took us all to Mackinac Island for both kids' anniversaries, as Aaron's sister was married there last year, so it was a combined anniversary. We stayed at the Market Street Inn, a nice Victorian B&B at the east end of town and one block up from Main Street, right next to the park below Fort Michilimackinac. We left Thursday after work, staying at a hotel in Mackinac City before catching Friday's first ferry to the island. It was a lazy weekend involving a lot of walking around, eating, drinking, eating fudge, and a bike ride around the island on Saturday.
Among other reasons, Mackinac is unique in that it is the only place in the world where the downtown smells of horse poop and fudge simultaneously. Aaron hates the smell, but it doesn't bother me all that much unless I walk by a really fresh plop of horse exhaust. I worked there for a month, in the summer before my senior year of high school, as a dishwasher at the Iroquois Hotel. I was on vacation there with my mom, sister, and grandparents, and after seeing all the high school and college kids working on the island thought it would be fun. Someone said the Iroquois was hiring so I went down there, talked to one of the owners, and was hired on the spot. They also owned Lakewood cottage less than a block from the hotel, where most of the employees boarded. It's a huge three story + basement place, big enough to have been a B&B on it's own. I roomed in the basement with three college guys: Eric, Greg, and Tim, and really crushed on Eric. hehe...
I had a great time on the island, even though it was hard to fit in with everyone, and I often tried a little too hard. Being 17, ADD, introverted, naive, and closeted made for much social awkwardness. Despite that, I loved it there and really didn't want to leave. Since I was a druid-obsessed D&D geek who spent most of his time daydreaming about such things, the island was a natureboy's wet dream. When off work I could roam the forests, cliffs, and beaches with complete freedom and no parental oversight. The whole place held a sense of wonder for me, as if it were alive and aware in a way, and after I left I wanted nothing more for the next 2+ years than to be back there, especially once I'd joined the Navy and was enduring boot camp and training schools.
I went back once for a day trip, a year or so after I left the Navy, to find that feeling had mostly vanished. This past weekend, since I was there for three days and actually staying on the island, I tried to rediscover it, without success. It's still a beautiful island, but the magic is gone: the trees, rocks, and water are just that, nothing more. Part of me was glad to leave Sunday because, honestly, there's really not that much to do there once you've done it already.
Pictures to follow later today.
Among other reasons, Mackinac is unique in that it is the only place in the world where the downtown smells of horse poop and fudge simultaneously. Aaron hates the smell, but it doesn't bother me all that much unless I walk by a really fresh plop of horse exhaust. I worked there for a month, in the summer before my senior year of high school, as a dishwasher at the Iroquois Hotel. I was on vacation there with my mom, sister, and grandparents, and after seeing all the high school and college kids working on the island thought it would be fun. Someone said the Iroquois was hiring so I went down there, talked to one of the owners, and was hired on the spot. They also owned Lakewood cottage less than a block from the hotel, where most of the employees boarded. It's a huge three story + basement place, big enough to have been a B&B on it's own. I roomed in the basement with three college guys: Eric, Greg, and Tim, and really crushed on Eric. hehe...
I had a great time on the island, even though it was hard to fit in with everyone, and I often tried a little too hard. Being 17, ADD, introverted, naive, and closeted made for much social awkwardness. Despite that, I loved it there and really didn't want to leave. Since I was a druid-obsessed D&D geek who spent most of his time daydreaming about such things, the island was a natureboy's wet dream. When off work I could roam the forests, cliffs, and beaches with complete freedom and no parental oversight. The whole place held a sense of wonder for me, as if it were alive and aware in a way, and after I left I wanted nothing more for the next 2+ years than to be back there, especially once I'd joined the Navy and was enduring boot camp and training schools.
I went back once for a day trip, a year or so after I left the Navy, to find that feeling had mostly vanished. This past weekend, since I was there for three days and actually staying on the island, I tried to rediscover it, without success. It's still a beautiful island, but the magic is gone: the trees, rocks, and water are just that, nothing more. Part of me was glad to leave Sunday because, honestly, there's really not that much to do there once you've done it already.
Pictures to follow later today.