Day 47
Weather for day two of
Mackinac Island did not compare favorably with day one. We woke to gray skies, and just as I stepped
off the boat to go for my shower the rain started coming down. I decided I was going to get wet in the
shower so I just kept going. By the time
I arrived at the end of the dock for the washrooms and showers, the rain just
poured down. A brief hiatus allowed me
to get back to the boat after my shower.
Yesterday we found out
that the coffee shop next to the marina served home-made scones and provided
WiFi to customers. Clark and I walked over to take advantage – me the scones
and Clark the WiFi. As we sat there
enjoying our breakfasts a thunderstorm came overhead and gave us an amazing
show of nearby lightning. We found
ourselves basically trapped in a bakery with delicious food.
I ended up buying an
extra scone for me and a bagel for Clark to take back to the boat to eat later
as well as a long-sleeved T-shirt advertising the restaurant because I liked
the color. Without the rain, I am
certain that we would not have spent the extra money there. The scones tasted just the way I like
them. So often they are more like
biscuits and less like scones. These
were light and fluffy and yummy. I can’t
wait to eat my saved one tomorrow.
While we waited for the
storm to clear, Clark took a few pictures of the rainy harbor through the café window. They do not show the force of the storm, so I
am not including them here. We watched
our Rainy Days app and eventually found a weather window big enough for us to
get back to the boat without getting hit by lightning, so we went for it. Here’s a picture captured after the skies
started to clear.
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| Skies Clearing after Thunderstorms |
Clark took the
opportunity of dismal weather to do trip planning. He put together an outline of our Lake
Michigan plans to get us to Chicago by August 27th when we are to
meet Jeff, Devon and Sierra. The Great
Loop association website says to allow one day in three as a non-travel day due
to high winds / waves on the lake, so even though 8/27 is a few weeks away, we
have to plan carefully and watch our weather closely.
Finally the rain stopped
and the Rainy Days app indicated that the storms were history, so we decided to
explore more of the island. We started
by strolling through town to visit the shops we missed yesterday. Many sell knickknacks and souvenirs which I
am not interested in collecting at this point in my life. As I mentioned yesterday every other shop
sells fudge and ice cream. We skipped all
the fudge shops yesterday, but we decided to venture into a couple today.
I learned from a fellow
boater that the fudge shops give out free samples to entice customers to buy
from them. She heard on the horse-buggy,
guided tour she took yesterday that if you stop at every shop and get a sample,
you will have eaten a pound of fudge by the end. I got two very good samples and decided that
was more than enough for me. It was very
sweet and rich – just as it should be.
Towards the end of town
we came by a fudge shop where a person was working the fudge from liquid into
solid using the equivalent of a wide, large putty knife used for spreading
spackle on sheetrock. He pushed it back
and forth and round and round as it cooled always working it towards the middle
of the marble-topped table he was working on.
About halfway through I got the general idea and was ready to move on,
but Clark was glued to the window (we were outside looking in) like it was a
suspense movie, and he had to watch to the exciting conclusion.
Just as the worker put
the finishing touches on making the giant fudge log, Clark noticed that more
fudge was brewing in the back of the shop.
He figured that it must be almost done cooking, so he wanted to watch
them pour the hot fudge onto the marble-topped table. Again we watched and waited and were
eventually rewarded as two men carried over this vat of fudge and poured it out
on the table. We left after that and
compared our viewing experience to walking into a movie theater late, missing
the beginning of the movie, and staying for the first part of the next showing
to see what we missed.
By now the day was
getting on, the sun (whatever we had seen of it today was started to set), and
I began making plans for dinner. Before
the fudge show, we had just bought steaks in the local food market to cook on
board. I had been holding the steak bag
through the whole fudge movie and was definitely ready to get back to the
boat.
As we start walking in
that general direction, Clark pulls out the map of the island and points out to
me that there are a few streets in one section of town that we did not see on
any of our touring yesterday. He, of
course, wanted to be sure he had covered every square inch of the island and
not missed anything of import or otherwise.
I told him I was not walking anywhere carrying my steaks with me plus I had
too many layers of clothes on and was too hot to walk without ditching some.
Sugar and I do not get
along well together, so even though I enjoyed the mouth-watering fudge, I paid
the price about an hour after eating it.
I told Clark as we walked back to the boat that I was cranky due to my dropped
sugar level. As soon as we got back to
the boat, I ate a handful of nuts to throw some protein into my system to
counteract the sugar. It helped
immensely, and even though it was already 6:40, I agreed to go for that walk
Clark wanted to take.
The walk turned into a
two-hour stroll up and down all sorts of hills on dung-covered streets. The heavy rains had spread out the clumps of horse
dung to cover large areas of the streets making it a challenge to walk without
adding unpleasant odors to the bottom of our shoes. We are obviously not horse lovers as we both
agreed the island would be paradise without the horse droppings and therefore
without the horses. We don’t find the
horse and carriages charming, and neither of us would ever consider paying the
$28 per person fee to ride in one of the horse-drawn carriages.
We did see some
interesting sights on our walk. Although
we did not see any live ones while visiting here, turtles apparently inhabit
the island. We saw these two on our
walk.
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| Great Turtle Park |
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| Stack of Turtles Statue |
We found the barns where
all the horses and carriages go at night.
These two old wagons sat in the yard by one of the barns.
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| Old Wagons – sprinkler and market wagons |
Last, but not least, we
were impressed by the Grand Hotel and all its pomp and circumstance as well as
the area surrounding the hotel grounds.
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| Road to the Grand Hotel |
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| Grand Hotel |
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| Little Stone Church on the Road to the Grand Hotel |
If you do the math, you
will realize that by the time we got back to the boat, it was already after
8:30, and I still had to cook dinner,.
The steak I served together with the fresh zucchini and squash medley of
vegetables bought from the roadside stand in Drummond made a delicious
combination though I was so hungry by the time it was cooked, I probably would
have eaten almost anything. I grumbled
at Clark after dinner that I did not enjoy washing dirty grills and woks at 11:00
at night whereby he pointed out that it was only 10:15. Ah! No
problem then!
After dinner cleanup I
jumped on my computer to get in today’s blog entry. I am sure I will sleep well again tonight
from all the fresh air and exercise I got walking the steep hills here in
Mackinac Island.
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