Mackinac!!!!!

So as I've already stated no cars or motorized vehicles are allowed on the island (there are some ambulances and fire trucks that are only used for emergencies). Consequently there are 3 main ways to get around the island: on foot, biking and my personal favorite, by horses!!!! It seemed like most people there probably had their own horse so I felt quite at home. We could have hired some hack horses and ridden ourselves around the island however since this was our first trip up there we decided to use the horse drawn carriage tour company. I forgot to take pictures of the first half of the tour so you will have to live with my descriptions. For the first half they take you around town and give you an idea of where the different stores/museums are and show you where some of the nicest hotels are on the island. The famous one that most people associate with Mackinac is the Grand Hotel. The movie "Somewhere in Time" was shot partially at the Grand Hotel. Unfortunately Kris and I's nightly hotel budget was not in the $250/night a range so we stayed at a much smaller hotel in the "downtown" area of the island.We will come back to my pictures of the Grand Hotel when I detail Kris and I's personal bike tour of the island because there is a good story that goes along with it....
Back to the horses, so the first half of the carriage tour drops you off not coincidentally at the Carriage Museum!! In addition they also had a butterfly museum set up as well which you could tour for a nominal fee. This was probably the most impressive butterfly museum I have ever been to. The wide variety of butterflies was amazing as can be seen below (I uploaded a ton I know....they are just all so good I couldn't decide!):

We found a friendly one!

After a quick tour through the carriage museum we boarded a different carriage to take us through the part of the island that is a protected park (if you pick wildflowers it's a couple of hundred dollars per flower). They used draft horses for these carriages and Kris was fascinated with how tall they are....

Had my father been on this carriage tour he would have loved it because our tour guide enjoyed telling the same corny jokes as he does! One of the neatest parts of the island is what's called Arch Rock. My nickname for it was "the rock with the hole in the middle". Scientifically of course there is an explanation for how the middle section was worn away over time; however, remembering that some of the original occupants of the island were Native Americans of course legends abound about the rock.  The most popular story tells of a young beautiful Native American girl who lived on the island with her father and their tribe. One night she encounters a handsome man and falls madly in love. The man is a "sky man" and therefore invites her to marry him and join him in his home in the sky. She accepts however when she tells her father he becomes engraged. Determined to turn her into an obedient daughter he makes her sit on the top of a large rock until she has decided to listen to his wisdom. However instead of coming down she sits up there continually crying. Eventually her tears wear a hole in the middle of the rock and one night her lover descends and carries her off to his home in the sky.
There was also a beautiful outlook up there that gave us some great views of the shoreline and the lake. Here are some of our Arch Rock pictures....there will be more in a later post when I detail our bike trip around the island.....

Okay that's a more than long enough post for now...tomorrow will cover our visit to Fort Mackinac!