In which the Author goes to Mackinac Island and breaks into The Grand Hotel

You know how you feel when you were supposed to have sent a ‘Thank You’ card to someone and you keep procrastinating, and then you start putting it off some more because it’s going to be awkward and you don’t know what to say- but then waiting longer makes it even awkwarder(yes that’s a word).  Finally it’s so awkward that you just take the envelope and crumple it up, spill a little coffee on it, and then backdate the card about three months and then pretend the post office lost it and it’s just getting to them now? Or instead, maybe you email them and saying “your street number  is 1111, right?” and then they say “No, it’s 2222” so then you can say “Oh! No wonder my letter didn’t get to your house- I’m going to put it in a new envelope and send it again. I’m so sorry you haven’t gotten it yet” What? You guys don’t do this? Uh…. me either.

So hypothetically speaking, if that were ever to happen to me, I imagine that I’d feel sort of how I feel right now. After not posting anything for almost a month, it’s gotten to the tad bit awkward stage.  I contemplated back dating the post and pretending that it just got lost out in internet space and it’s Al Gore’s fault.

So anyway- lots to catch up on.   While I’ve been ignoring you, dear internet I’ve actually been doing some relatively fun things.  I should warn that previously mentioned fun is relative to anesthesia school, so forgive me if you do not find it all that enthralling.

Mackinaw Island

While there are no nice things about Flint, there are a few nice things about Michigan.  When Justin flew in to visit me at the end of May, I took him up to one of the tourist hotspots- Mackinac Island.  We went up for Memorial Day weekend to celebrate our one year anniversary.  Except it was neither Memorial Day weekend, nor our one year anniversary.  So we really celebrated our eleventh month anniversary a few days before Memorial Day weekend.  That somehow doesn’t sound as cool, but such is our life so we went with it. The island is really little, and its main claim to fame is that there are no motorized vehicles on the island.  Horses, bikes, and those two things on the end of your legs are the main forms of transportation.  Unless you are fat, then you can ride around on one of those little amigos- which I believe are motorized and technically shouldn’t be allowed on the island. But that is neither here nor there.

For me, the island brings back memories of my fourteen year old self and my summer romance with the deadhead.  So of course I had to share that amazing experience with my husband(He was not that entertained). I was sort of hoping to make new memories that don’t include tie-dyed clothing, hemp, and the Grateful Dead.

At five miles long, The Mackinac Bridge is one of the world’s longest suspension bridges and connects Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas.  Which is sort of cool- if you’re into that sort of stuff.  I’m personally more into the morbid stories about the workers who were building the bridge fell into the cement towers as they were pouring the cement and suffocated to death as the cement fell in all around them. Or the cars that get blown off the bridge in the winter and smash into the ice below and die an agonizingly cold, somewhat soggy death.  But hey, if you think the architecture and history is more interesting I’ll keep throwing some of that in for you.  Because this is all about you.  Actually it’s all about me, but I’ll do what I can to keep the two people reading this masses happy.

We brought our bikes with us, and took a ride around the island.  I had memories of biking around it as a kid, and I swear it took all freaking day.  But it’s really only eight miles around the whole island, so even at my slow, whiny pace, it only took about an hour or so.  As Justin has not seen much of Michigan outside the lovely city of Flint, he was pleasantly surprised to see that it’s actually very pretty.  And we didn’t get shot at once!

Fort Mackinac was built in the 1800’s or something like that.  The British fought the French who fought the Americans who then fought the British, who then fought the Americans who eventually kept it- or something like that.  If you’re really interested, you can read about it on Wikipedia here.  Or not.

Along with the 3,594 school children who were on the island with us, we toured the fort, and watched all the history videos and attended all the cannon and rifle demonstrations.  I’d tell you more about it, but I just don’t remember any of it.  I think my mind was fixated on the pool at the hotel.  We did go to the pool, although I don’t have any pictures of it- which is just as well, because I don’t believe I’d be posting pictures of me in my swimsuit on the internet anyway.

There was a cute little rifle demonstration during which my husband kept muttering something about the actors not doing their ‘about face’ and marching stuff correctly, and how they would’ve gotten their asses chewed out if they were really in the military.  Yes, dear.

One of the really cool things about Mackinac Island is the Grand Hotel.  It’s really big and quite grand.   It’s quite a steal too.  Only $430 something per night. Per person…..  Needless to say- this wasn’t where we stayed.  It was built back in the late 1800’s and is one of the few remaining all wood hotels in the U.S.- or something like that.  It’s got quite the reputation, and charges non-guests to even grace the steps of the porch.  Due to the ridiculous fee, and the requirement for ‘proper attire’, I only blame my parents a little bit for never taking me there when I was younger.  I figured that we wouldn’t be visiting this time around either as I’d forgotten my white gloves at home.

I was wrong, and thus began our adventure into sneaking into one of the most ridiculously overpriced hotels in the world.  Turns out when you sit next to the Grand Hotel’s head bell captain-person at the local bar in town- you get the inside scoop.  Along with the perfectly drawn out map of where to enter the hotel, and which elevators to take in order to arrive at the 360 degree circular bar at the top of hotel.  Muaaahhaa.

Of course these directions being given to me at the bar, it can’t be all that surprising to any of you that I didn’t quite catch it all or remember it correctly.  It would’ve been much more helpful had the bell captain-person brought along the model below of the hotel and pointed out exactly where we needed to go.  Alas, he didn’t and so it led to Justin and I traipsing through the hotel, ending up in places where we weren’t really supposed to be.  I hid in the bathroom for awhile, coming up with an attack plan based on the picture I took of the model hotel which was so conveniently stationed outside the bathroom.  I may or may not have also re-appropriated some of the really cool paper hand towels that had little horses and buggies printed on them.  Seriously, it’s no wonder to me that they don’t want people like us coming in.  We take shit.

In defense of my thieving ways, on our search to find the top floor bar, we wandered into this other library-like bar and ordered a glass of wine. An expensive glass of wine at that, so I feel like I deserved those paper towels.  After a few different stairwells and some elevators, we finally found the bar in the copula.  Empty.  I guess the rich folks all go to bed at 1130pm.  So we sat down anyway and I drank my wine.  Turns out, that at 11pm at night it is sort of dark, so the view sort of sucked.  Well played, Susannah.  Well played.

After exiting the hotel, we wandered down the steps to the hotel gardens and grounds which can be entered only through these specific set of stairs.  As I still had the wine in my hand, no one dared question our right to pass- because really, anyone wandering around a hotel with a glass of wine in their hand must belong there, right?  The flowers were pretty and all, but sort of boring.  But oh look! Another fence- with a pool and hot tub on the other side!

This is the other reason that hotels like this don’t want people like us anywhere near them.  We climb fences.  Dress and all, I was over that fence after Justin as soon as I heard the words ‘scairdy cat’ come out of his mouth. I realized that not only am I one classy broad, but that I also need to work on resisting peer pressure.  There was no hot tub poaching- but most likely only because there wasn’t water in it.  We traipsed around the pool grounds and hung out on the rows and rows of lawn chairs, basking under the full moon, imagining what it must be like to have servants feed us grapes and fan our faces with palm trees.  Actually- that was probably just me imagining that.  I’m not sure what Justin was thinking about.  Along with my now empty glass of wine, I left a small sticker from my sandal on the poolside table on our way out.  I can only imagine the outcry that was heard the next morning.

“OLD NAVY!!!!??  How did someone who wears clothing from OLD NAVY get in here?!?!”

They’re lucky that’s the only thing I left.   I did happen to need to pee rather badly.  But I decided to hold on to what little class I had left and insisted that we exit the premises. So we rode our bikes back to the other side of the island where the commoners stayed and where the interior design team hadn’t smoked crack before decorating the hotel.

All I’ve got to say is, if I had paid more than $800 a night for a hotel, showed up and it looked like this- I’d be PISSED!

Tagged as: Suz, Travel