Two Decades (Observed), Pt. I

Kris booked this place after noticing its insanely high rating online. . .

Hi readers.

Well, Kris and I have officially hit the 20 years of marriage mark this week (Oct. 7th), but seeing how our anniversary this year falls on a frickin' Wednesday, we decided to head out of town the weekend before in order to properly celebrate. This trip was definitely thrown together at the last minute; we have plans to head up to Harbor Springs in a few weeks with seven other couples (I'll be posting about that later this month - stay tuned), and since that mini-vacation is costing us an arm and a leg, we were basically gonna just consider that our anniversary weekend. Then we realized that was kinda lame, and that we needed to properly acknowledge the milestone. So we scrambled and decided to hit up Mackinaw City again (like we did for our Tenth Anniversary a decade ago.)

Once again, our focus was Fort Fright - the annual Halloween-themed takeover of Fort Michilimackinac, where they convert many of the historic buildings inside the fort into haunted houses and crap like that. We were saving that for Saturday evening, and planned on spending the first day up there checking into our reserved-at-the-last-minute motel, walking around and hitting up shops, doing a wine tasting or two (again), and eating at the Keyhole (one of our favorite restaurants in town.) So in order to get up there at a halfway decent time, Yours Truly took the day off work and we hit the road around noon, which put us there just at check-in.

So here you go, folks - our first installment of anniversary pics from our weekend up north. Enjoy. . .

Since we decided to head out of town only a couple weeks ago, we kinda had to scramble to find a place in the area that was both decent and had decent reviews. After looking at a few different places, we landed on this one (which was insanely high-rated on the sites we were looking at.) The only downside was we had to change rooms, as they only had one room available each night (no room had two nights available.) Kind of a minor pain, but nothing too crazy 'cause the place itself was pretty small (maybe a dozen rooms, total.)  

Kris mentioned briefly over the phone that we were celebrating our 20th anniversary this weekend when she called the hotel, so we walked in to find this super gay display set up on our bed (though I suppose it was nice of them to add this touch.) 

I've rarely stayed in a hotel room with two doors to the outside. This is from the front side of the motel (where we ended up leaving our car park all weekend - we walked everywhere.)

Room was simple, but clean - we were more than fine with it.

We felt like this room was slightly nicer than the one we'd get on the second night, but the bathroom wasn't as nice.

Big selling point of this place is the location - about a 30-second walk to the fort, and a spectacular view of the bridge. There was an old lighthouse right next door to the place (there's a pic of it later in this post), but we never had time to go check it out.

Heading into town, after having settled all our crap into the room.

Walking past the main, downtown main strip of shops and restaurants.

We decided to hit up the Crossings first, then double-back and hit up the shops and crap as we got closer to dinner time.

This looks like one of those drawings you'd spot in a rock magazine back in the '60s or '70s.

For no reason whatsoever, there was a giant, 30-foot, Transformer just standing in the middle of the shops.

Spotted a wall of vinyl art in one of the stores we popped into, but I didn't get it (I'd have nowhere to display it, and honestly if I'm dropping that much on a record I'd want to be able to listen to it.)

Spotted that little Dutch boy from last time, still fishing in the same fountain. Don't think he's caught anything yet, you'd think he'd move to a different location at this point.

Kris makes a friend.

We popped into one wine store and got to sample a few different wines for free (which was odd, 'cause usually you have to pay to do that.) Lady was super chill, I almost bought this bottle of Mighty Mac as a thank you but opted not to.

If this thing was real, it would be absolutely terrifying.

IYKYK.

The Crossings wasn't nearly as big as we had remembered (I think we've gotten used to the one in Frankenmuth in the last ten years, and that shopping area is far bigger), so we were finished with it a lot sooner than expected. We double-backed to the main drag of the city and continued ducking in and out of shops, but never bought anything (we're kinda at that point in life where it's extremely rare we end up actually walking into a shop and purchasing something.)

This little alleyway - lined with Halloween crap, like every other spot in town this month - circled around some kinda restaurant that Kris and I contemplated stopping at, but they didn't serve booze.

That's racist.

There was some kinda contest going on with each business competing for the best Halloween display. They also had a scarecrows decorating contest, with little QR codes on each one that you could scan and submit your vote (we'd end up voting the following day on one, but I'll get to that in the next post.)

Downtown Mackinaw City

Most of the stores along this strip are dog shit, so we ended up skipping a lot.

How is this not copyright infringement?

Don't think this building and decor is up to Jimmy Buffett's standards. . .

Is that injun drinking from a bottle or blowing a horn?

View of The Crossings entrance, from across the street.

Tons of free cherry samples on hand in this store (cherry-chocolate-covered coffee beans, licorice, salsa - you name it.)

Kris on a weiner dog.

Inside some half-art/half-confections store. A bizarre mix of over-priced art (hundreds of dollars a piece for the small ones), and the usual fudge/flavored popcorn/candies offerings.

An AT-ST

An AT-AT

And the good ol' Millennium Falcon.

Kris and I both expressed interest in hunting down a new Fort Fright poster again (like we did last time), but when we finally spotted one while out and about we saw that they haven't changed the design AT ALL in the last ten years. Seriously? They just kept the same frickin' poster design for the last decade? Couldn't even change the color, maybe do one in green or purple instead of orange? Definitely a let down.

After reaching the end of the strip, we decided to head south and kill some time in the Mackinaw Island Brewhouse complex. . .

I always make a point of stopping off to this place whenever I'm in town. There's a cool-looking bar on one end, you got a brewery in the middle, a place where you can do a wine-tasting, there's an arcade, and then some kinda popcorn/candy/fudge shop at the far end (which I've never frequented, obviously.)

Metal statues are all the rage up here these days I guess.

Kris and I walked through the complex and randomly decided to drop $10 on the arcade, which wasn't something that either of us expected we'd be doing this weekend. Played a few different co-op shooting games, this weird pirate-themed one soon becoming a favorite.

We weren't very good at this and both of us were killed in the opening mission/level/whatever, but I was just happy that my score was higher than hers.

This game was way too hard for what it was (tough the guns you got to use were pretty cool.)

After a few video games I had to assert dominance over my spouse in air hockey.

After a few games, we decided to save the rest of the money we had left on our little card thingy (they give you a credit card that you tap on the machine in order to start each game) for the following day. We headed back over to the adjoining room in order to do a little wine tasting. While waiting for our wine flights, I noticed that one of the beers they had on tap was Midland's famous Copper Harbor (one of my personal favs from the local brewery.)

I was in a 'red' mood, which is rare for me 'cause usually I'm a chardonnay guy. These were all Michigan wineries and most of it was some take on Michigan cherries (some more successful than others.)

Kris, unsurprisingly, went with a bunch of sweet dessert whites and blushes (I didn't care for any of hers.)

Our server was pretty much garbage - she ended up disappearing for about ten minutes at one point, probably stepped outside to hit a blunt or something - but she took our picture (upon Kris' request) and so we ended up leaving her a tip in the end.

After our wine-tasting, we walked back downtown and headed for the Keyhole Bar & Grill for dinner. . .

Kris, not amused that I wanted to get a pic of the inside of the place while we waited for our food.

A chalkboard in the men's room. Apparently someone is proposing this weekend - hopefully the chick (or dude, I guess it's 2026 and everything) said 'yes.'

We didn't have to wait for a table when we got there, but as we were leaving an hour later there was a huge line of people waiting outside to inquire about getting one. Definitely lucked out with our timing this evening. After leaving there, we headed back towards the motel, and spotted a local take-a-book/leave-a-book library that someone had set up along the sidewalk by the shore. 

Hell yeah, old dude loves to read.

These two pink cars were parked outside one of the coastal homes all weekend, with personalized plates that I obscured for privacy's sake. Kris took this in order to send to Alayna back home, who's super into cars these days seeing how she's dating a full-blown gear head.

Sunset over the Riviera Motel.

We filled up our Yeti tumblers with some wine that Kris brought along (I included a pic later on in this post) and went down to the beach for some sunset views of the Bridge.

Getting a selfie with the bridge in the background is much harder than it should be.

The previously mentioned lighthouse (that we didn't go in this weekend, having done it before years ago.)

Twenty years of this, folks.

Kris wanted to get some sunset imagery in the background. Happy wife, happy life.

Ominous clouds, but the rain held off today (thank God.)

Kris didn't remember if it was possible to walk right up to the fort from the bridge (despite me telling her you couldn't due to a fence under the bridge blocking it off.)

Who would want to in the first place, that's the question.

Some more bridge pics. Because that's what you do up here.

As it got darker (and colder) out, we decided to head back to the motel.

Found this hidden stairway leading up to the pool area that gave us quick access from the motel to the beach - didn't notice it at first.

The pool was still open for some reason, but we never saw a single person taking advantage of it throughout the entirety of the weekend. Far too cold for swimming these days.

View of the bridge from our second door, at the end of the night.

We ended up watching the first Avengers movie and worked on this wine bottle (that Kris picked up somewhere because she though the bottle looked awesome) for a bit before calling it a night. Tomorrow we'd be heading back into town to do a bunch of touristy crap, which I'll leave for the next post. Stay tuned. . .

 - to be continued. . .