Mackinac Island day 2

On Wednesday, our first full day on the island, we languished a bit in our room before heading over to the main building for coffee and breakfast. Since all the breakfast offerings were one form or another of prepackaged food we just focused on the hot brown water followed by a couple of bananas. Fortunately there’s a Starbucks just up Main Street where we made up for the bland coffee offering of the hotel. 

Since we had to remain close by the hotel in order to be ready to move into our new room we just strolled through town: first downtown and then back east, just past our hotel, we popped into Saint Anne's Catholic church. Madame Laframboise was instrumental in helping to found the original building and upon her death in 1846 she was buried, per her wishes, beneath the altar of the church. Once back onto Main Street we headed east along M-185 briefly until we reached Mission Point Resort before returning to the Harbour View. We then had lunch at Bill’s Grill outside our hotel — light sandwiches — before settling in to our new room and relaxing before heading off to afternoon tea at the Grand Hotel.

About 3:30 we called for a taxi and headed off to our destination. Our taxi driver drove right past the “guard” at the entrance so we didn’t have to pay the $10 entry fee for nonresidents of the hotel. We made our way upstairs to the main level, found a comfortable place to sit and settled in for the afternoon. Susan had the tea and I just sipped a “champagne” label for the Grand Hotel. No idea where it came from. 

Susan gave the tea experience a grade of C-, and indeed it didn’t look very impressive. But the harpist playing nearby was superb, her choices of music wonderful and we hung about until everything closed down, at 5pm. We made our way out of the hotel along the long porch and up West Bluff Street before turning back to the hotel and then down into town for dinner.

We ate at The Village Inn, a place run by a Jamaican chef and while Susan had a crispy, fresh salad, I opted for the house specialty, “planked whitefish”: Lake Superior whitefish surrounded by Duchesse Potatoes and perfectly prepared vegetables. Tasty and spot on!

After dinner we meandered through town and ended up back at the hotel where we sat out on our patio with a glass of Nocino from Long Road Distillery in Grand Rapids (we brought a small bottle with us).

 

view from our room - can't get enough of the water

Memorial Park off Market Street

note the last two lines. . . 

note the sign on the fence

just outside of town on the west side of the island, along M-185

interior of Saint Anne's - madame Laframboise is buried beneath the altar

entrance to Mission Point

across the road from Mission Point

M-185 in front of Mission Point

Bill's Grill, on the grounds of the Harbour View Inn

taxi driver

tea service area

The Porch

sunset viewing area

looking back at the GH from West Bluff

presumably takes you down to M-185

yep, it's grand alright

color change already

memorial to Woodfill Park