By Ellen Creager
Traveling in Michigan? Hotels, attractions and driving are the easy part. The hard part is dining.
This week my husband and I did a five-day driving trip and spent time in Gaylord, Mackinaw City, Mackinac Island, Petoskey, Charlevoix and Traverse City. We stayed on Mackinac, took the ferry, hiked at Sleeping Bear Dunes, and strolled the streets of Charlevoix and the paths of Hartwick Pines’ old growth forest. It was my first trip up north since March. It was our first vacation since February. It was glorious and wonderful.
Yes, it was a bit tiring to constantly have to remember to put our masks on, then off, then on, then off. But it was a small price to pay for the freedom to travel our beautiful state.
Although indoor dining and air travel are two things I still don’t feel ready for, I still felt confident on this trip. Staying at hotels, I felt safe. Rest stops along the freeway were clean and open. The ferry to Mackinac was fine. Riding bikes on the island was freeing and splendid.
The only bad experience we had was at Friske Farm Market on US 31 in Ellsworth, where we stopped for apples. We did not know it, but they are embroiled in a big legal fight with the state over mask wearing. The cashier and many customers wore no masks in the crowded store. We hurriedly left.
Other than that, everyone the entire five days was considerate, kind, thoughtful and respectful to one another.
So I’m going to make a few suggestions here. If you want to go on a trip, do it.
Hotels: They are functioning at probably about 20-30%, which is reassuring. We stayed at 4 hotels, a different one each night, and never felt unsafe. We brought our own pillows, used the readily available hand sanitizer and brought Clorox wipes to skim the light switches and door handles in our room, even though the rooms were all spotlessly clean. Housekeeping will not clean a room until after you check out, so you need to make your own bed and hang up your towels. Pools and hot tubs were open at 3 of the 4 hotels, and when we saw no one at the pool, we swam. One more thing: there are no amenities in hotel rooms right now except soap and shampoo, so bring paper, pen, cream and other necessities.
On the road: We felt completely safe on I-75 and side roads, at gas stations and at roadside parks and rest stops. Because most fast food restaurants are open only for drive-through, make pit stops at rest stops instead. This may be an issue for people who have to go to the bathroom a lot.
The Mackinac Island ferry: The issue was not with safety. We felt safe on the boat because we sat outside. All wore the required masks. But I do think there was an issue with staffing – a lot of folks this year are still going to Mackinac Island even in September, and the ferry was late both ways. That’s unusual.
Mackinac Island: If you rent bicycles, rest assured they are sanitized. Downtown sidewalks were a bit crowded, but most people wore masks. Even some of the horse taxi drivers were masked. Beyond the main drag, you have plenty of space to spread out. We hiked above the town, went to the Grand Hotel to absorb its reassuringly stable aura, and rode our bikes around the 8-mile perimeter road. That road was closed most of the summer due to high water and road damage, but it’s now reopened, with a gravel surface in some spots. The water is still high. By the way, you know all those cairns (stacked stones) visitors have been erecting along the shoreline for years? Gone. All gone. Swept away by Lake Huron.
Sleeping Bear Dunes: This fall, Pierce Stocking Drive is being upgraded and is completely closed. That is bad for visitors, because that is the driving route that puts you right at the dunes. Instead, we hiked the one-mile Empire Bluffs trail for its view of Sleeping Bear. The trail is suitable only for fit folks, which means people who use wheelchairs or are slow walkers are out of luck right now.
Now to the tough part. Dining. We don’t feel comfortable eating inside of restaurants, so we tried hard to find outdoor dining for dinner. It was not easy, especially when the temperature was only in the 50s.
We brought granola bars, a bottle of wine and two glasses, a tablecloth, silverware, paper plates and cups, just in case we needed them. We did, because our meal experiences were a little sub par.
Breakfast: The Fairfield Inn in Gaylord normally has a free breakfast buffet. Now, they simply put out brown paper bags with cold egg muffins or bagels inside. They do pour coffee for you. The Lake View Hotel on Mackinac similarly had to abandon its buffet due to the coronavirus. Instead, it left a bag outside our room with rubbery hard boiled eggs and a pastry. Two Courtyard by Marriot hotels we stayed in in Petoskey and Traverse City sold a limited breakfast in the lobby, but at least the coffee was hot and they had real cream.
Lunch: On Mackinac Island, many people did eat inside restaurants. Not for us. We twice got sandwiches from the case at the local market and ate them al fresco at a picnic table below Fort Mackinac. One day we ate outside at a small restaurant in Traverse City, which had two tables on the sidewalk. We also went through the McDonalds drive-through in Holly, then ate the food at a table at a rest stop off of I-75. Not ideal, but OK.
Dinner: It was hard, because part of the fun of travel is dining out. The destinations we visited had very limited outdoor dining, plus it was cold. In Gaylord we ordered carryout from Gobblers and ate our turkey dinners at a back table inside the empty lobby of our hotel. On Mackinac Island, we ate a nice dinner outside at Gatehouse Restaurant, the only actual “dinner out” we had. In Traverse City, we got Mexican carryout and ate in the hotel lobby again. The upside: our meal costs were really low.
All in all, we found everyone in Michigan’s hospitality industry trying their hardest to give people a good time while complying with the harsh regulations Covd-19 has imposed. We were impressed with the kindness and good spirits of almost everyone we met.
And we were pleased most of all that our state’s enduring fall beauty worked as a balm for our tired souls, allowing us to return home to survive whatever crazy thing comes next.
