THE BEERS' GREAT LOOP TRIP ABOARD HUMBUG: Mackinac Island

Downtown Mackinac (MackinAW) Island is like Provincetown on steroids minus any motorized vehicles and plus 600 horses. The island, which is in Lake Huron just before the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Huron joins Lake Michigan, is a tourist mecca. Ferries full of day trippers arrive all day long. There's one fudge shop and trinket store after another. And, because there are no cars or motorized buses or taxis, there are lots and lots of bike rental places. There are also lots and lots of horse-drawn taxis, buses and "trucks." Apparently, one car made it on to the island shortly after cars were invented, and the local horse-carriage trade, seeing the writing on the wall, got an ordinance passed that's still in force today that prohibits motorized vehicles. Hence, the place has stayed cool.

In addition to the horse and buggy, fudge shop and bicycle-related things of interest here, there's a fort on the hill overlooking the harbor and downtown. It was built by the British to ward off the yucky
Americans in the American Revolution, but it only took a couple of years for the Americans to sneak around behind it and take it for themselves. The British, going to school on the American's attack technique, snuck up behind the fort and took it back during the first land battle of the War of 1812. The treaty at the end of the War of 1812, gave it back to the Americans.

Anyway, that fort's now a major tourist attraction and cannons and rifles are shot off periodically all day long and fifes compete with the music at outdoor patios of the restaurants downtown. Because we were in the harbor, which is right downtown and therefor right below the fort, we were awakened every morning by revelry and serenaded each evening by taps.

We stayed here four days and biked around the island (only 8 miles - flat and paved) every day, viewed the Grand Hotel of course, and had some wonderful dinners (a nice change from the rustic outposts where we dined on Georgian Bay).