Mackinac Island

Last weekend my parents came for a visit.  We went to Mackinac Island on Saturday which calls for another photo post!

The Arnold Line of ferries has two trips each morning that go under the bridge before heading over to the island.  How awesome is that?  Naturally we took one of those!

Unfortunately there were no cars driving over the grating when the ferry went under the bridge.  Still pretty amazing.

Once we got to Mackinac, we took a carriage tour.  This is Arch Rock along with some stunning waters.

They mean business here.

On the carriage tour we stopped off at the Wings of Mackinac butterfly conservatory.  Definitely an unexpected highlight of the island.

Here's another butterfly.  I took several more photos of butterflies (and one giant moth which was kind of creepy) but these two were the ones that came out best.

We stayed at the Grand Hotel!  Not only that, but our room faced the lake and had a balcony!  (So it was one of the few rooms that you see right above the main entrance.)

The view from the balcony.  Just off the left side of the photo: a wedding featuring 10 bridesmaids and just about the complete opposite of what my wedding will be like.

Being at the Grand Hotel we took advantage of the "world's largest front porch", where instead of reading the book I had bought earlier, I used my phone and the "grandhotel" wireless network to look up the relative sizes of Mackinac Island and the nation of Nauru.  Nauru is a bit more than twice the size of Mackinac but probably gets far fewer tourists.

A view of Round Island at sunset.  That's the old Round Island Light on the right, and the newer Round Island Passage Light on the left.

Woo!

Delicious?  Not so sure about the green, orange, purple, or pink varieties of fudge.  But this particular shop advertised that it had made some Mt. Gay Rum fudge, so of course I had to ask for a sample!  Were it not for the fact that I had bought a half pound of maple walnut earlier, I would have gotten some of the rum walnut.

The fiancé's interest in all things boat-related has influenced me not a little bit.  Here we have one freighter heading west and the other heading east.