Our Second HONEYMOON: Mackinac Island!

After all these years of saying and wishing, we finally went back! This past weekend, we left the girls with Grandma and Grandpa Drake and went back to Mackinac Island, where we honeymooned, to celebrate our five year anniversary! It was such a romantic, quiet, relaxed weekend, we loved every minute of it! It brought back so many memories from our honeymoon, and we were even mistaken for "newlyweds" at one point by a store owner, what a way to top off the weekend!

This time we stayed on the island (pretty pricey, but worth every penny!) at Harbourview Inn (pictured above) and staying on the island as opposed to off the island lets you experience Mackinac's streets at night and the night life on the island's restaurants and pubs which was so neat!

The island is set in a Victorian Era so all the shops and homes are beautifully restored to that Era. We had great food and of course fudge, since Mackinac Island makes the best fudge in Michigan.



Mackinac Island is an island north of Michigan in between Michigan and the Upper Pennisula, kind of where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet. To get there, you have to take a ferry across Lake Huron (pictured above) which is about a 20 minute boat ride.

The night we arrived, it was cold and rainy and so windy that the waves were reaching about 6 ft. high! They actually closed the Mackinac bridge because it was too windy, so I was pretty terrified of taking this boat ride to the island. The boat ride was 20 minutes too long, with waves higher than the boat and our boat even CAUGHT AIR TWICE!?!? I thought for sure I was going to die there, but we arrived safely to the island. After checking in, we went out for dinner and hot chocolate...


Mackinac Island is known for the invasion that happened at Fort Mackinac (pictured below) which was invaded by the British after the Revolutionary War (who knew?) which we toured the next day. It ended up being a beautiful fall day so we went sightseeing at Fort Mackinac, the Grand Hotel and rode bikes to some beautiful places. Below are the pictures from Fort Mackinac...

Above & below: the view from Fort Mackinac


Below: this was a gun hole to place your gun to fire at the British through one of the walls around Fort Mackinac.





(Above: Mackinac Island bridge that connects Michigan's lower and upper peninsula's)

The coolest thing about the island is that there are no cars allowed on the island, so to get around you either take a horse-drawn carriage (pictured above) or ride bikes!


Cam chose which trail to take to Arch Rock and Sugar Loaf rock and the whole trail happened to be all uphill...not very fun! But the view's were breathtaking...



The way back to Main Street was more fun since it was all downhill. We were cruising pretty fast until we screeched to a stop when this fell in our path...

No worries... we just carried our bikes over the tree and went on our way.

The island is most famous for the Grand Hotel which is the first thing you see on your way to the island. If you know the film "Somewhere in Time" with Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour, it was filmed on this island and in the Grand Hotel.


The Grand Hotel ranges from $500-$1100/night! Men must be dressed in a coat and tie and women must wear dresses when you're on the hotel's property... it's pretty fancy shmancy I'd say. They even make you pay $10/person just to walk on the porch if you're not a guest at the hotel. Instead of walking on the porch, we spent our $10 more wisely... like on fudge and ice cream.

We had such a great weekend, it was the best way to spend our anniversary together! Thanks Cam for making the weekend so magical and memorable!