This post was originally published on another blog of mine (www.WhereLocalsGo.us), which I have since ceased using. I have moved all posts to my main blog for the sake of simplicity — Jen 6/12/09.
Because we were part of a tour, the second day on Mackinaw Island started with breakfast & an informational meeting. To get to our meeting, we had to walk past a fabulous-looking buffet in the Round Island Bar & Grill in the Mission Point Resort’s Main Lodge. Our fare was a little less elaborate. In addition to normal breakfast buffet fare such as fruit, oatmeal, yogurt, etc., there were blueberry pancakes, tasty omelettes, biscuits and gravy….everything was definitely a cut above in appearance. If breakfast had not been included each day, we would have checked it out for sure.
After the meeting, we took a group walk up to the fort. Fort Mackinac is a step back in time. You can hear the canon go off throughout the island every so often during the day. At the entrance, you are met by a young man or lady in period garb. They also have the governor’s honor guard of Boy Scouts & Girl Scouts who alternate weekends at the fort, acting as guides & completing service projects. The fort has exhibits in most of the buildings and one building had great interactive kids exhibits. You can play period songs like Yankee Doodle on the fife in one room & in another, the kids can dress up in period clothing & get their pictures taken. Like any good museum, there is a Suttler (period term for store or gift shop). Although the fort is after the time period we reenact, we went in looking for resources we could use at Rendezvous. I got a great list of books to buy. There is also a restaurant in one of the buildings that has a stunning view of the island and the straits with outdoor seating.
For lunch, we walked downtown to the Pizza Buffet (w/35-item salad bar!) that they were pushing via flier the day before. Located in the Murray Hotel, you enter to the wonderful smell of fudge in the lobby–I think selling fudge is a rule of doing business. At the back of the building is a room with LOUD floral wallpaper otherwise decorated in pizza place, a la Pizza Tycoon. They have breadsticks (the best thing they had), a dessert pizza with pie filling on top and about 5-8 different pizza’s, plus the 35(!) item salad bar for $7.95/adult AYCE. As my husband said, “This pizza deserves Ranch.” It was marginally better than average frozen pizza. The crust was really tough & they didn’t properly label the pizza toppings. My ham & pineapple had undisclosed onions.
We didn’t do much else on Saturday; I’ll write more about our trip next week.