Favorite Journey Jaunts: Mackinac Island and Door County

The pandemic has clipped our wings, so to speak, as traveling isn’t safe at present. So, while we roll toward the new normal, it’s the perfect time to look back and reminisce! That’s why we’re starting a new blog series highlighting Favorite Journey Jaunts, with tales and photos of past expeditions that have been the topic of much discussion in the last handful of years. We hope you enjoy this retrospective.

For our first installment, we’re looking back on one magical trip to two specific areas, with many marvelous destinations in between: the Mackinac Island and Door County tour from September 2017.

The trip took us through eastern Iowa, where we stopped for dinner at a fantastic retro supper club overlooking the Mississippi, spent a restful night in Dubuque, then headed into Wisconsin. In Madison, we toured the Wisconsin State Capitol, which warrants a visit if you haven’t already; it’s listed as one of the top three in the U.S. for its beautiful architecture.

The afternoon gave us the most magical introduction to Door County quite by accident. We were scheduled to tour a cheese shop (because... Wisconsin) but were delayed due to road construction. The cheese shop couldn’t stay open for us (not to worry, we hit another one later in the tour) and a search of alternate attractions uncovered The Garden Door, a one-acre public garden designed and maintained by members of the Door County Master Gardeners Association and divided into 20 breathtaking sections, from faerie gardens to perennial grasses and bottle gardens. Exquisite.

We spent two days exploring the upper peninsula’s quaint lakeside communities and their offerings. In some cases, mealtimes offered their own attraction, such as Al Johnson’s, a restaurant in Sister Bay that serves delectable Swedish food and incredible coffee — and just happens to have goats grazing on the roof (they climb a ladder to get up there). Another example of this was Pelletier’s, a longstanding family restaurant near Egg Harbor that hosts authentic Wisconsin fish boils. We saw several lighthouses, including the iconic 89-foot-tall tower on Cana Island in Bailey’s Cove. The island also contains the original home of the lighthouse keeper and the oil house where the fuel was stored. It’s worth riding the hay wagon over the causeway and climbing the 97 steps of the spiral staircase to the gallery deck for a breathtaking view!

Not far from Manistique, Michigan, there’s an underground spring in Palms Book State Park, called Kitch-iti-Kipi, or Big Spring. Visitors can ride a glass-bottomed raft (more of a pontoon, really) across, viewing ancient tree trunks, mineral-encrusted branches, and fat trout in the crystal waters below, which we did before traveling by ferry to Mackinac Island and checking in to the legendary Grand Hotel.

An overbooking error at the hotel resulted in some fabulous luck for our group, as we were upgraded to large rooms and shared suites, all incredibly opulent and with staggering views. Three of our ladies who were traveling together shared the governor’s suite, which was so well-equipped for entertaining it was missing only the governor! We reveled in the Grand’s timeless elegance; explored the golf course, tennis court, tea gardens, and art gallery; savored meals in the formal dining room; and enjoyed the after-dinner orchestra in the Terrace Room and a nightcap in the cupola piano bar. By day, we toured Arch Rock and other island landmarks by horse-drawn carriage and shopped the quaint downtown district on foot. If you’re familiar with Mackinac Island, you know the only other transportation option is bicycle, which no one tried on this trip! One doesn’t have to spend much time on this quaint, fragrant isle (from the centuries-old lilacs, not the horses) to see why it’s known as the jewel of the great lakes.

A tour of Castle Farms in Charlevoix allowed us to explore more incredible gardens, both contrived and fanciful. Traverse City offered much in the way of attractions: The Music House Museum was a fun look of the history of automated music (some of our musical travelers joined in the demonstrations!), we tasted and toured to our hearts’ content at Cherry Republic, and the Michigan Artists Gallery offered seemingly endless square footage of colorful, quirky, browsable space. In historic Holland, Michigan, we toured tulip farms and purchased bulbs, watched a skilled artist paint Delftware, witnessed the carving of wooden shoes, and admired the splendor of Windmill Island Gardens.

Another highlight of Michigan’s lower peninsula is Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, with its crystalline sand, lush flora and fauna, and beautiful bluffs far above Lake Michigan. It’s no surprise that Good Morning America named it “The Most Beautiful Place in America” in 2011. The water was so clear, many of us just had to dip our toes.

This was quite the tour, full of beautiful sights, amazing experiences, and unforgettable food. Throughout the journey, talk on the coach kept turning to bucket lists; we had fun learning what kinds of destinations/experiences/events were important to each of us. We revisited the topic on the way home. The consensus was that this nine-day extravaganza enabled most of us to cross off some items (at least one!). Of course, on each adventure, you learn of something else, your curiosity is piqued, and you’re adding to the list again.

We hope you can join us on our next adventure. Please continue to watch the Journey webpage for updates on our travel program.