Transportation Lesson #5: Drive-It Yourself Carriage Tour (Mackinac Island, Michigan)

Selfie View, Photo by Krenda

If you enjoy horses, Mackinac Island feels like a dream location.  You step back in time, including transportation.  No cars allowed.  Everyone walks, bikes, or gets transportation via horse.  In the winter, residents can use snowmobiles.  However, as a tourist, you will likely visit in the Spring, Summer, or Fall, and enjoy the clip-clop sound in surround sound.

Back View

In planning our third trip to Mackinac Island, I wanted to find a unique experience.  Most people likely take the Mackinac Island Carriage Tours sightseeing tour that covers a lot of ground (Surrey Hills Museum, Arch Rock, Fort Mackinac, and Grand Hotel) in approximately 2 hours and $34 fee per person.  You might take a horse taxi to your hotel.  I wondered whether we could ride a horse or drive a carriage.  You can do both on Mackinac Island.

Side View - Driver

Four generations of the Gough family have operated such service.  It began with Taylor Gough who rented drive-yourself horse and buggies.  In 1953, Taylor's sons Jack and Burton established Jack's Livery Stable.  The family expanded the business to include Cindy's Riding Stable too.  Both Jack's and Cindy's rent horses ($50 per hour) for passengers up to 250 pounds.  Jack's rents carriages ($80/hour 2 passengers, $100/hour 4 passengers, and $120/hour for 6 passengers.  You'll figure out the time you need by looking at the maps with estimated timing.  We chose a path to go through woods and past the Grand Hotel.

Island Traffic

You don't need experience to drive the carriage.  They give you instructions.  Here's your opportunity to use the terms "Giddy up" and "Whoa".  You do need one designated driver.  Also, you should think about the age of your passengers.  One of the rules states "parents are asked to hold on to their small children to keep them from falling out of the buggy."  With teenagers, we didn't need to worry.

Reservations taken one day in advance.  You can also see whether available on the same day.  If you don't want to drive the carriage, but you want a private tour, both Mackinac Island Carriage Tours and Gough Carriages offer for $160/hour for up to 4 guests.

If we had more time, horse riding lessons or carriage driving lessons would also provide a memorable learning experience.  Check out the Mackinac Horsemen's Association lessons, including intro to riding (2 hours $110), private lessons ($55/hour), and semi-private 2 person ($45/hour each).  I learned about their programs through the tv show Best of America by Horseback.  They had a special two part episode featuring Mackinac Island.  Giddy up to Mackinac Island and appreciate the horses.

Mom Blooper: Goat & Grant's Farm

It's time out for another "Mom Blooper".  Travel can lead you to so many adventures, including unexpected ones.  People always joke about the ultimate excuse "the dog ate my homework."  Somehow family travel led me to claiming "the goat ate my daughter's snow cone ticket."

It all starts with a casual family outing to Grant's Farm, a family friendly attraction in St. Louis, MO.  It's a great deal - free admission to the park, free tram ride to tour the deer park, a beer garden with free tastings, and free animal shows.  The Busch family, the family who owned the Anheuser-Busch company, owns 281 acre Grant's Farm.  You can see the famous Clydesdale horses and carriage houses even without the $25 Clydesdale Experience Tour.  The park offers a 1.5 hour estate grounds tour "Estate Tour" for $25, but you can spend much longer just walking the grounds and seeing animals.

In this wonderful land of free fun, there's an opportunity to buy a bundled "fun pass" for only $6.  Here's the beginning of "the goat ate my daughter's snow cone ticket" claim.  The pass includes one carousel ride, two goat feeding bottles, and one snow cone.  Who could pass up such a combination?

My daughter entered the goat feeding area with two bottles and her remaining snow cone ticket.  The goats surrounded her.  I don't think she expected goats trying to eat her skirt while trying to feed another goat.  The snow cone ticket got too close to a goat mouth and we watched in terror as the goat quickly snatched it, chewed it, and swallowed it.  My daughter exclaimed "no one's going to believe that the goat ate my snow cone ticket!"  It's a hot day.  Her cousins and brother still own snow cone tickets.  You know it, mom must approach the window to explain to the compassionate employees the entire ordeal.  The employees didn't seem to phased by the story and gave us a snow cone ticket. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the "goats can be aggressive" sign, but we had a fun time overall.

NPS #8: Adams National Historical Park

Where can you teach your children about two Presidents at the same time?  Take your kids to the Adams National Historical Park in Massachusetts.  Part of the National Park Service, this historical site is located 10 miles south of Boston in Quincy, MA.  You can enter the buildings only through a guided tour, so go to the Visitor Center (1250 Hancock Street) early.  Tours are based upon on a first come, first serve basis between May 18 and Nov. 10th.  First tour begins 9:15AM and last tour leaves at 3:15PM.  No big bags or backpacks allowed.  The visitor center also provides an approximately 30 min. orientation film Enduring Legacy:  Four Generations of the Adams Family.  Allow up to three hours for the tour.

 The first tour stop takes you to two homes declared a National Historic Landmark: 1) John Adams Birthplace, and 2) John Quincy Adams Birthplace.  You will learn the history of our 2nd U.S. President and 6th U.S. President.  The stories are full of love and patriotism.  After marrying Abigail Smith, John Adams settled the family in a house less than 75 yards away from his birthplace.  You'll see where Abigail wrote John letters and the fireplace where her son John Quincy helped make musket balls for the war.  You can imagine Abigail and her son watching the battle on Breeds Hill from another nearby hill.  John Adams served as a leader in the American Revolution, assisted in the Declaration of Independence, served two terms and Vice President, and elected President.  His son John Quincy joined John Adams in Europe and John Quincy learned seven languages.  Both John and his son began practicing law and served as U.S. Presidents.

Stone Library   Photo by Krenda Frushour

   You'll board the trolley again to transport to the next Adams family home.  The Old House or Peacefield has a Georgian-style estate.  The Adams family made numerous additions over the 140 years.  My favorite were the English-style garden and the Stone Library.  John Adams constructed the garden and pond.  The grounds still hold a yellowood and black walnut that John Adams planted.  John Quincy Adam's son Charles Francis Adams, an ambassador to the Great Britain during the Civil War, added the library, greenhouse, and carriage house.  The library is stunning and holds 14,000 historic volumes and believed to be the first presidential library. It also served as the location for Charle's sons Henry and Brook Adams to serve as historians and write.  We visited on a beautiful day in which bright flowers bloomed, the sun shined, and we ended the tour on the vine covered porch.

Peacefield or Old House

History Lesson #2: Mackinac's Grand Hotel (Michigan)

Pride. It's obvious when you see it. Grand when I toured it as a kid, just as grand when I toured it as an

adult. The artwork, the geranium carpet, real geraniums blooming in boxes, so vivid in my mind.  Author Patricia Schultz lists "Mackinac's Grand Hotel" as a must see site in her book 1,000 Places To See Before You Die.  She recognizes the local pride, "The first thing ferry passengers spot as they approach Mackinac Island is the rambling white Grand hotel, perched larger than life, high atop a hill sheathed in emerald green lawns and untold thousands of blooming flowers...local authorities tout as the largest summer resort in the world (with some 380 rooms)."

As an adult, perhaps I spent a little more time noticing the artwork and decorations.  My kids noticed the gigantic porch and the numerous white painted rocking chairs, just waiting for a rocking kid.

Here's a few fun facts

385 rooms, and no two are the same

660 ft. front porch makes it the world's largest

2,500 geraniums decorate the porch in 260 planing boxes

1 million people visit Mackinac Island every year, but only 600 year round residents

Tip: The overnight stay cost may be expensive, but if you eat at one of their restaurants, your reciept works as a pass to enter the hotel. Unless you are wearing formal wear in the evening, visit before dinner.

Open since 1887. May we all take such great care of places for the next generation.

If you would like to travel back in time, take the ferry to Mackinac Island.  You will step off the ferry onto a magical place filled with horses, natural beauty, and fudge shops.  The island bans automobiles, so you enter a place where everyone walks, bikes, or takes a carriage or horse ride to the next natural or historical site.

Travel tip:  To appreciate this timeless island, watch movies filmed on Mackinac Island.  First watch the movie "Somewhere in Time".  Second watch the movie "This Time for Keeps" which features the Esther Williams swimming pool on the Grand Hotel property.
http://www.somewhereintime.tv/

For more photos, check out my flickr set "Mackinac Island, MI" http://www.flickr.com/photos/krenda/sets/

Art & Sculpture #2: 7 Ice Sculpture Festivals in the US

Ice Sculpture Festival, Photo by Krenda

When you grow up in Northern Wisconsin, you have a choice to complain about the bitter cold or embrace the winter scene's beauty.  I remember as a child enjoying a winter festival in Feb. which included horse drawn carriage rides and cherries jubilee.  What caught my eye and attention were the ice sculptures, impressive pieces of art suddenly appearing on the square.

Exposure early in my life intrigued me to learn more about this art.  I continued to be captivated by ice sculptures.  I intently watched contests on cruise ships, amazed by such skill with a powerful chainsaw.  I even drove up to the largest and oldest ice festival in the United States, the Plymouth Ice Festival, in January.  We took our kids to the local ice festival in the "city of sculptures" - Hamilton, OH.  Another winter, we took them to an ice festival in Kentucky which included the artists demonstrating how to create the art from a block to the finished product, while listening to live music - so cool!

Lesson Idea

Art:  Before attending a sculpture festival, teach children that art can be made with lots of different medium - even ice!  It's also a science project as you teach children about solids transforming to liquids.

1.  Fill half gallon cardboard milk carton with water and freeze overnight

2.  Remove ice from container and stand block up in a pan
3.  Sprinkle rock salt on top
4.  Squirt colored water with eye droppers, watch the color run through the cracks

Here's 7 Ice Sculpture Festivals you and your kids could attend:

1.  Plymouth Ice Festival - Plymouth, Michigan (MI) pictured above
          http://www.plymouthicefestival.org/
2.  Stowe Winter Carnival - Stowe, Vermont
3.  Fire and Ice Festival - Mount Holly, New Jersey (NJ)
4.  The Greenbrier Festival - White Sulphur Springs, WV
5.  The Green River Crystal Classic Winter Festival - Green River, WY
6.  Ithaca Ice Wars - Ithaca, New York (NY)
7.  Titanic's Ice Sculpture Competiton - Pigeon Forge, TN

If you are making a road trip to the festival in Pigeon Forge and need to rent a cabin, check out my other blogs
 http://www.lightningbuglodge.blogspot.com/
http://www.indigomoonlodge.blogspot.com/