Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ferry. The wind had died. The last sleet melted as it hit the ground and then stopped fall-
ing altogether. Everywhere there was the tip-tip-tip sound of dripping, off the roofs, off
branches, off me. It was only ten o'clock and nothing was happening at the quayside-the
Chevette, dressed with sleety snow,stood alone and forlorn in the big parking lot-so Iwent
and walked around, down to the site of the original Fort Mackinac and then along residen-
tial streets full of treeless lawns and one-story ranch houses. When I returned to the ferry
site, about forty minutes later, the Chevette had gained some company and there was a fair
crowd of people-twenty or thirty at least-already boarding the boat.
We all sat on rows of seats in one small room. The hydrofoil started up with a noise like a
vacuum cleaner,thenturnedandslid outontothegreenbleakness ofLake Huron.Thelake
was choppy, like a pan of water simmering on a low heat, but the ride was smooth. The
people around me were strangely excited. They kept standing up to take pictures and point
things out to each other. It occurred to me that many of them had never been on a ferry
before, perhaps had never even seen an island, not one big enough to be inhabited anyway.
No wonder they were excited. I was excited too, though for a different reason.
I had been to Mackinac Island before. My dad took us there when I was about four and
I remembered it fondly. In fact, it was probably my oldest clear memory. I remembered
that it had a big white hotel with a long porch and banks of flowers, positively dazzling
in the July sunshine, and I could remember a big fort on a hill, and that the island had no
cars, but just horse-drawn carriages, and that there was horse manure everywhere, and that
I stepped in some, warm and squishy, and that my mother cleaned my shoe with a twig
and a Kleenex, gagging delicately, and that as soon as she put the shoe back on my foot, I
stepped backwards into some more with my other shoe, and that she didn't get cross. My
mother never got cross. She didn't exactly do cartwheels, you understand, but she didn't
shout or snap or look as if she were suppressing apoplexy, as I do with my children when
they step in something warm and squishy, as they always do. She just looked kind of tired
foramoment,andthenshegrinnedatmeandsaiditwasagoodthingshelovedme,which
was very true. She's a saint, my mother, especially where horse shit is concerned.
Mackinac Island is small-only about five miles long, a couple of miles wide-but like most
islandsitseemsbiggerwhenyouareonit.Since1901nocarsormotorizedvehiclesofany
type have been allowed on the island, so when you step off the boat onto Main Street you
find a lineup of horse-drawn carriages waiting at the curb-a fancy one to take customers
to the Grand Hotel, open phaetons to take people on expensive tours of the island, and a
kind of sledge to deal with luggage and freight. Mackinac village was just as perfect as I
remembered it, a string of white Victorian buildings along a sloping Main Street, snug cot-
