Friday, August 16, 2013

Meandering on Mackinac and Mustang Islands

After Mary and Lewis got back from a two-week trip to eastern Europe in early July, you’d think they would have stayed home awhile. Wrong. Mary turned right around and left for another two weeks, this time to Mackinac Island to visit her cousin, Amelia Musser.

While Lewis tended to us as he worked on his upcoming book on San Antonio’s Spanish plazas in the frontier era, Mary reveled in Michigan’s cool weather and spent hours walking in the woods above Grand Hotel, owned by Amelia and her family.

The Grand, where “Somewhere in Time” was filmed, is one of those storied places that has to be seen to be believed. Its columned porch—the longest in the world—commands a spectacular view of Lake Michigan. But the interior is just as breathtaking, furnished with gorgeous antiques and paintings.

If dogs were allowed in the lobby Chica and I would have loved seeing the trophy room, devoted to Sadie, the Musser’s dog that won best in show at the Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden in 2010. We would also have liked partaking of treats in Sadie’s Ice Cream parlor, a new addition at one end of the hotel, named for our famous canine cousin.

Well no sooner than Mary got home than she and Lewis turned around and went to Port Aransas for a long weekend, leaving us dogs at home to be checked on by cousin Ian Lanphear. Don’t get me wrong: Ian’s great. But we prefer it when our master and mistress are here to tend to our needs 24/7. And we hated missing all those hourlong walks Mary took every morning on the beach.

At least we’ve had a couple of walks in Brackenridge Park between trips. Last Monday five ladies showed up for an hour’s walk that began in the cool and ended in the heat. A pity we weren’t walking on Mackinac Island instead.

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