Mackinaw Island

We had the best trip to Mackinaw Island last weekend! Mackinaw Island is this little island between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. It is full of old charm mostly because there are no cars allowed, only horses and bicycles. And they aren't kidding about no cars- even the street sweeper was pulled by horses!

Once we got off the ferry we started off the day with a little walking tour of main street. There are tons of cute little shops to check out including Ryan's favorite...the library
They even had a post office for the necessary sending of postcards
Beautiful view from the island of the Mackinaw Bridge

Then we saw a dog parade benefiting a greyhound resuce group and after that was a horse and pony show. Not as cool as I was expecting but still a cute show.

You can't tell but that is a pony dressed up as an elephant carrying a puppy dressed as a lion!
How cute are they?!
The only horse who can sit in a chair


After that we rented a tandem bike and rode around the island.
There is a paved 8 mile road around the island that was incredible. It's right next to the water and the views and landscape were amazing!This was the best part of our trip but next time we won't be renting a tandem...all I saw was Ryan's back the whole way :) Except when he is doing his impression of speed racer

We took the bike through the city for a bit more exploring then checked out the Grand Hotel. This is the crown jewel of the island.

You even have to pay to just walk around the grounds there if you aren't a hotel guest but don't tell...we snuck in without being noticed :) I totally thought we would go back to stay there but not for $259 per person per night MINIMUM! Can you believe that? And that is for the most basic room. I'm glad we decided to save money and stay on the shore in Mackinaw City.

After checking out the Grand we hiked up to Skull Cave. Sounds cool right? It wasn't, it was lame. No skulls to be found in this "cave" that is more like a crevice. Oh well. We sure did have some beautiful views of the Great Lakes and the Mackinaw Bridge on the way down.

We were exhausted by then so we wrapped up our shopping and caught the ferry back to shore.Thanks Mackinaw for such an awesome trip, we will be back again soon!