Mackinac Island

I can see why Mackinac Island is such a tourist attraction. Simply put – the place is absolutely gorgeous! – which is not an adjective normally associated with Michigan in my mind. Mackinac Island – called "mak-in-aw" by locals, just to be contrary in my opinion, considering that Mackinaw City is just on the other side of the Mackinac Bridge. So much "mac", and so little time! This little island squished between the upper and lower peninsula claims to have no cars on the island, so all island transport is on bicycles or horses. Yes – you heard me right – horses.

 Here's a picture of aforementioned horses making their daily rounds. Pretty much everything that would normally get delivered by truck has to be delivered by horse, because there really is a limit to how much stuff you can carry on a bicycle. Now the drawback to having so many horses plodding around the island is – you guessed it – horse manure!

There is so much horse manure on the island that there are official horse poo scoopers whose job it is to go around and collect all the "fudge" lying around on the streets. Clearly some very clever person has been sampling too many of the local confections. Which brings me to other idiosyncrasy of Mackinac Island – fudge shops. There are entirely too many fudge shops than any one place could possibly ever need! The effect of  all these horses and fudge shops is a very Disney-like Main Street, U.S.A. feel to the island. If that floats your boat, then sail on down to Mackinac Island! If not, I would say it is still worth the visit just to see the spectacular scenery. (Just scroll up the first picture if you need a reminder.)