Seeing Mackinac Island With Mom

This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we'll have fun.

William Golding

View of the Grand Hotel and a section of the Island from a trail above

A gift

For you, we said

And the three of us pitched in.

And took our mom on a ferry to Mackinac

Island. We dragged her around from sight to sight:

forts, shops, restaurants, on carriage rides and through gardens

It seemed like we were always climbing or descending hills

Or stairs whenever we wanted to get anywhere

But mom kept up and never complained

and we laughed and said,

“What a gift”

Fort Mackinac during a cannon firing demonstration- one of the soldiers runs to get a new match to light the cannon after the first one failed

Success on the second try! The ground shook.

Arch Rock Trail winding through the woods in the Mackinac Island State Park

Arch Rock in the early morning light

Beautiful dark trillium in bloom in the Secret Garden on The Grand Hotel grounds

Bridge over a river of grape hyacinths in the Secret Garden overlooked by the Grand Hotel above

Masses of tulips bloomed everywhere on the island.

If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.

Frances Hodgson Burnett

For those of you who don’t know about Mackinac Island, it is a small Island where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan meet off the northern coast of Michigan’s lower peninsula. They don’t allow cars on the island, so transportation is by horse drawn carriage, bicycle or on foot. If you’d like to know more about the island and it’s history, check out their website here.

If I were to go again, I would love to run the entire circumference of the Island (I think it’s about 8 miles) and spend a lot more time exploring the natural areas of the state park, which makes up about 80 percent of the island. The carriage tour was fabulous, funny and gave our feet a welcome rest. The only stop on the tour I would recommend seeing on your own instead is Arch Rock. It’s much better to see without a crowd. That is only possible in the early morning, or in the evening after the tours stop running. I would also definitely recommend seeking out the Secret Garden on the grounds of the Grand Hotel. It was magical. I don’t know what it’s like at other times of the year, but it wasn’t too crowded for our early season visit and the flowers were blooming wildly everywhere.

This was the first trip my sisters and my mom and I have ever taken together as adults, with just the four of us. Mom flew in from Texas, my sister Rita drove up from Alabama, and I drove across the state to spend the night in Lake Orion, Michigan, at my sister Becky’s house, on a Sunday. Monday morning, we rose early and piled into Becky’s car for the four-hour drive to Mackinaw City, where we took a ferry ride to Mackinac Island. It was fun right from the start. We walked and shopped, tried the famous fudge, visited historic buildings and gardens, took an afternoon carriage tour and got dressed up for dinner every night at the Grand Hotel. We played cards after dinner in the trophy room, gave each other lots of grief and laughed until we cried. We went to bed late and got up early. It was exhausting and absolutely lovely. We’re already thinking about the next trip we’ll take together.

Thank you so much for being here. See you next week!

My crew of fellow troublemakers: from the left: me, my sisters, Becky and Rita, and my mom, Janet.

No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.

Elbert Hubbard

P.S. The poem was meant to be a “shape” poem (a diamond) which is a bit of a risk because I’m not sure if the format will come through when this page is converted to email by th messaging system.

0possum

… beauty lies even in humble, perhaps ugly things, and the ideal, which bypasses or improves on nature, may not be truly beautiful in the end.

Albrecht Durer

In the tall unmown grass, the little opossum approached my window.

Snuffling and chewing, he ate while I watched, and a tick nibbled on his ear.

His tiny hand-feet almost danced across the lawn as he wandered back into the woods.

Sometimes small things lead to great joys.

Shmuel Yosef Agnon

I had been home for two days after a long road trip. I was a little tired; a little lonely. I was staring out the window in the early morning, when a movement caught my eye. An animal, larger than a squirrel, but smaller than a cat, appeared from under the hemlocks, sauntering across the back lawn. I couldn’t tell what it was at first. It had a shiny grey coat. It had big, beautiful black eyes. Its head was down, nose to the ground, rear end high and it was lightly stepping through the wet grass. At first, I thought it was a woodchuck, but when it came close, I realized it was an opossum. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one so clearly - but then, I never see them in daylight. Usually, I see their shining eyes in the headlights when I come home at night. They always seem creepy and ugly then, sneaking around in the dark. I didn’t know they did that because they see better at night. I didn’t know much really. I didn’t know they can climb trees, using their tails to help grip the branches or keep them from falling. I didn’t know they are not vulnerable to snake venom, so they can prey on poisonous snakes. I didn’t know they eat many garden pests. I didn’t know their back “feet” are more like hands, with opposable thumbs. I didn’t know what good company they could be to a lonely traveler in the early morning. What a blessing.

If you want to learn more about opossums, click here.

Thank you so much for being here.

And later that day, another blessing…a peaceful moment by the lake as the sun dropped through the scattered clouds.

Camping in the Rain

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A view of the start of Appalachia at sunset

The thing about

camping in the rain

is that when the rain stops

you go outside-

and you are lighter,

the world is lighter,

the birds are singing again

and a little joy creeps back

into your heart

and you walk the muddy path

splashing just a little bit more

than strictly necessary

smiling like you never saw the sun

until just today

when it pushed its way

past the heavy clouds

and shined.

View fullsize

Rain-soaked White Cave Path at Mammoth Cave National Park, where my boots got muddy, and I smiled to be back outside.

Tall grass flattened by rushing rainwater on the hillside next to the path to the historic cave entrance at Mammoth Cave

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

John Steinbeck

This trip was not what I expected. I expected quiet and peace and trails and warm nights reading by a campfire. What I got was a lot of rain. Thunder. Tornado and hail warnings. More rain. Flooded campgrounds. Then, periodically, the sun would come out and I would get out and go. It made every moment I spent outside really special. In Arkansas, I got to experience the warm steam rising from the ground at Hot Springs National Park on a cold day. In Tennessee, I got to run along the Mississippi River. In Alabama, I got to hike with my sister, Rita at a beautiful little trail system near her home. In Kentucky, I ventured into a deep cave (see last week’s post here) and came out with a resolution to face my fears instead of avoiding them, and I’m excited about that shift in my attitude. The trip wasn’t what I expected at all; but on reflection, I think it was exactly what I needed it to be.

Now I am home in Michigan, where all the spring flowers are blooming early. The air is cool and crisp in the morning, and the neighborhood animals (and the neighbors!) are making me feel welcome. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for being here with me. See you next week.

a mass of lilies of the valley cover the ground in the woods near my home