Another Check Mark off My Bucket List on an Island full of Chocolate Fudge & Horse Manure

It all began with another boat ride (well, after a two-hour car drive).  I swear I have been on the water so much this week, I should be growing a mermaid fin!

We boarded an 83-ft./150-person ferry like this one and after an enjoyable sixteen minute ride


 we walked down the dock and on to Mackinac Island, Michigan.

I know many of you have heard of this island. For those who have not, its main claim to fame is that no motor vehicles are allowed on the island.  Its second claim to fame is  the Grand Hotel followed closely by its fudge. There is a fudge shop on every corner.

You get from point A to point B on foot, horse or bicycle.

 Hence, the sweet smell of horse manure and chocolate fudge that wafts through one's nostrils as you step off the dock and onto Main street of downtown Mackinac Island.

Can you even imagine having everything done by horses? This appears to be the equivalent to our  UPS delivery trucks!

We chose to begin our tour of the island with a two-hour narrated carriage ride pulled by Beau and Cory and narrated by Ashleen:

I am only showing you the end of our two-hour tour as that is where my bucket list check mark comes in to play. Here we are approaching the Grand Hotel where we opted to end our tour and walk back to the downtown area after we toured this magnificent hotel:

See the arrow? That is the Cupola Bar smack dab at the top of the Grand Hotel. But before we get there, we need to walk up the red-carpeted steps of the Grand--right after we pay $10 per person for the privilege....yes, you cannot walk into the Grand until you pay $10 (unless you are staying overnight there-- in which case you would be picked up at the dock by a very grand-looking carriage and black top-hatted driver who would drop you off right at the steps, like these ladies:

The cost for one night at the Grand is something like $350.00 and up.

So the $20 we paid to get into the building seemed very reasonable.

That's me on the porch -- I am the one who matches the awnings!

The Grand Hotel boasts the longest wooden white porch in the world at 660 feet and the entire  660 feet is filled with red geranium planters.

 It is also known for the dozens of white rockers that line the long porch.

No trip to the Grand is complete until you have sat in one of those rockers.

I am the one in yellow sitting in the rocker...no idea who the couple in the front of me is....DH is not that great as a photographer--most people would wait until they had passed before taking the pic.  He says that lady looks a lot like me--I had not noticed, but I think he's right! LOL.


After a short time in the rocker we went into the hotel. What a grand old lobby!

But the place I wanted to go was the Cupola Bar.  That's my bucket list entry--go to the top of the Grand Hotel and have a drink.  So we took the elevator up four floors...I ordered a glass of wine and DH had a beer (another $20 w/tip).

Ah, but the view was spectacular!

Does this pool look familiar to anyone?

It is the Ester Williams heated 500,000-gallon, 220-foot long serpentine-shaped pool. The pool was built and is named for the actress Esther Williams who starred in the 1947 movie, “This Time For Keeps”, portions of which were filmed on Mackinac Island and at the Grand Hotel.   According to our tour guide, Ester Williams did not even swim in this pool that was built for the movie.  It was too cold for her, so they built an exact duplicate pool in Florida and she did the swimming scenes there!

As we were leaving, I snapped this great view of the Mackinac Bridge from the Grand Hotel Porch:

While reading this have any of you wondered why the streets of Mackinac Island are not full or horse poop?  Well, Mackinac Island employs quite a few pooper scoopers.....HUMAN pooper scoopers... on bicycle, like this man:

Yup, as soon as the horses do their duty, someone is right behind them, sweeping it up.  Now there is a job for those who like to work outdoors!

I had a wonderful two days away from home, but I was excited to get back to see how far the new porch had progressed.

Very soon I will have my own white front porch, albeit 652 feet shorter than the Grand! 

Thank you all for your kind comments during the past two days.  I had posts set to go, but could not answer any because I was not home and I did not want to announce that I would be gone.  I hope you all understand.

Bucket List

Jean has tagged me for the "bucket list" meme.

Jean said, "there are no rules except to give your list of five things you want to do before you die, based on the movie The Bucket List."

Well, I am at a bit of a disadvantage as I have never heard of the Bucket List, so I went searching to see what it was all about.

When I found out that Jack Nicholson starred, I was immediately interested. I always enjoy his movies.

I found the plot outline: Two terminally ill men escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die.

So what do I want to do before I die?

1. Retire. It would really tick me off if I died before I got out of the work force! I am a decade and a half from full retirement age. My plan was never to work until retirement age anyway. But then I didn't plan to work past age 40 either. Time flies by so fast.

2. I’d like to take more classes at the local community college. I LOVE learning. I already have two associate degrees from this college I am one class short of a third Associate degree. But I don’t even want another degree. Why would I need one? I don’t want to go to work again! I just love taking classes. The last few classes I took were computer related and I took them as an “audit” which means, I got no credit for them. I didn’t have to take any tests unless I wanted to. Auditing a class costs the same as if you were taking it for the credits. The advantage is it’s stress free.

3. Before I die, I want to have the freedom to waste time. Lots of it. That will come when #1 is reached.

4. I'd really love to, just once, tell a customer to go stay at a competitor's hotel! We all get a kick of out the customer from He**, who carries on about irrational complaints and then says, "I'm never staying here again." Just once before I die I want to clap my hands in glee and thank them profusely for not coming back. I must admit, I am laughing out loud right now just thinking about saying that!

I can’t really think of anything else I want to do. There are no material items that I long for. If I were younger, I would want a bigger house. But at this age, I don't want a mortage and I don't really want more to clean.

I like my life just the way it is. Though I would probably travel a bit, I don’t have any big travel desires, there is no foreign country that I am dying to visit, I don’t want to start my own business, I don't want diamonds, gold, or sapphires….

Basically I just want more time to wallow in pure selfishness. Time to do exactly what I want to when I want to do it.

I am supposed to tag five people, but you all know, I am not going to do that. If any of you want to, please feel free to do a post on what you would like to do before your time is up. It really takes some thinking to figure out what you want (at least for me).

Now I have a short term goal -- to rent that movie. Has anyone seen it? Is it worth two hours of my time? Because I am not quite at the point where I can spend productive time on a boring movie. :)

I sure wish Blogger would get that spell check fixed! Please ignore any misspellings.