The 3 Greats: Great Lakes, Great Hotels, and Great Quantities of Horse Poop

I realize my last post (and this one) had a “Kate Blatter early days” vibe. But bear with me—just like Kate's emails, I'll start with weekly novels, then my posts will dwindle to a few monthly paragraphs, then quarterly sentences, until one day they'll disappear all together and you'll be left wondering whether we toppled off Half Dome in Yosemite or became shark bait at the Dry Tortugas. 

Anyway, day 4 was a jackpot: Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, AND Lake Huron all in one day. They’re Great for a reason—massive, beautiful, sandy beaches, but way better than the ocean because… no sharks. Though, fun fact, they do have sturgeon, which are basically armored dinosaurs swimming under you. Comforting!

Ever since George watched Somewhere in Time with Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve, he's had this dreamy fantasy of staying at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. So being the romantic that he is, we hopped the ferry at St. Ignace, Michigan and landed on Mackinac island, which is basically like stepping straight into a postcard. No cars allowed! Just bikes and horse drawn-carriages. Quaint. Picturesque. Idyllic…until your nose gets involved. 

Because here's the truth nobody tells you: Mackinac is also one giant equine restroom. Poop and pee are everywhere. There's even several poor souls whose job description is scooping horse droppings all day. The "dust" that blows in your face when you stroll down Main Street? That's not dust. That's dried horse essence. Meanwhile, Hallmark would have you believe horse towns are sparkly clean (ahem, When Calls the Heart). Well, it's one big manure-scented lie. 

But Mackinac Island and the Grand Hotel were worth it. The hotel is decorated with a bold assortment of colors and patterns that should never be combined elsewhere. The giant veranda (one of the longest in the world) overlooks Lake Huron and is lined with white wooden rocking chairs, American flags, and geraniums. 

To have the full Grand Hotel experience, we had to have the five-course dinner served by uniformed hotel staff, with a harpist playing in the background (probably to calm the senses that were riled up from the gaudy, loud decor). But there's a catch: to enter the dining room (or parlor or veranda) after 6:30 pm, one must follow the hotel's dress code of "elevated evening attire."  Translation: a dress or suitcoat with tie. 

Dinner was followed by a jazz band and dancing late into the night—10:00 pm for us, to be exact.  All very romantic, if you ignore the faint aroma of horse poop wafting in the breeze. 

The next day, "timeless sophistication" gave way to spandex. we donned our bike shorts and pedaled all over the island—20 miles total. We started with the classic tourist’s loop around the island's perimeter that tourists are drawn to because its flat. Then we cycled the hilly interior where the views and wooded solitude in between the tourist hits made the hills worth it. Tourist hits included, rock formations, an old fort, the gazebo used in the Somewhere in Time movie, and a resort that funds humanitarian causes. 

The romance ended abrubtly that evening when we drove to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and transitioned from the Grand Hotel to a hotel so divey I briefly considered sleeping in the car. I haven't done any legal research, but I'm pretty sure Canada doesn't have an Americans with Disabilities Act because the place had no elevator. The Canadian equivalent must be that if you can't do stairs, you stay on the first floor. We lugged our heavy suitcases up to the second. At 10 p.m., the front desk called to inquire if we had bikes on the back of our vehicle. When we admitted we did, they instructed us to bring them into the hotel's office. That’s when we realized we booked in the wrong neighborhood.

Day 6 brought rain, so we skipped biking and drove to Sudbury, Ontario and worked in the public library for several hours. That night, we landed in Callander, Ontario, where George had booked an inexpensive, but actually clean, accommodation. Miracles do happen. We squeezed in a little bike ride to a fish-and-chips dinner a mile and a half down the road.

Day 7: more rain. So no biking again. Instead, I had a quick tele-doc appointment with a provider from India. I said “yes” to everything I didn’t understand (so basically the entire call) and somehow walked away with a prescription. Technology is amazing. Crossed back into the USA, picked up meds at Walmart, and finally arrived in the Adirondacks.

And that’s where I’ll leave you—for now. Until the next weekly novel. 

Every story has a soundtrack. Here's the theme song from Somewhere in Time to commemorate our time on Mackinac Island.