Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Good morning crew,

Here is the interesting thing about Mackinac Island; there are no motor vehicles allowed on the island (other than emergency vehicles and garbage trucks).

It only covers about 4 square miles and more than half of that is preserved as a state park. The rest of it is made up of historic landmarks (Mackinac Island is home to Fort Mackinac and was the scene of two battles during the War of 1812), an extremely quaint residential area and an abundance of tourist stuff.

Because of the lack of motor vehicles the two big modes of transportation on the island, other than feet, are bicycles and horses. Now, I knew about the bicycles because the wife and I were told we would have to rent them if we wanted to tour the island, but I did not know about the horses.

We got an early start because we only had one day on Mackinac, and after battling through the swarms of flying bugs and freezing our asses off on the ferry over to the island, we were deposited with the rest of the visitors the at the dock.

Even on the pier my first impression was of a palpable aroma of manure. I even said to the wife, "I smell horse sh...dung."

Sure enough, stepping onto the street the first thing we saw was a carriage harnessed to two, giant equine specimens. The wife was delighted, I was a bit unsettled. I admire horses for the beauty and their power, but I also respect the fact that they are not smart enough not to kill me by whim or by accident. So I like to give them a wide berth whenever possible. Now I was expected to share the streets with hundreds of them.

But, I was on an island so I was sort of stuck.

Now, with a circumference of about 8 miles and a beautiful paved path running completely around it, bicycling all the way around Mackinac is a fun, little adventure. I, however, am rarely content with a fun, little adventure, so the first opportunity I had to deviate from the path I took. And that was The Grand Hotel.

But I will continue that adventure in the next issue.

Laugh it up,

Joe

joe@gophercentral.com

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***
"A company in Japan has a new watch with a built-in breathalyzer that can tell you if you're drunk. It would probably work better if the watch didn't always list the time as '5 o'clock somewhere.'" -Jimmy Fallon

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"The Consumer Protection Agency has recalled 96,000 Jeep Liberty baby strollers because there is a problem with the tires blowing out. How fat are our kids getting when they're blowing out tires on their baby strollers?" -Jay Leno

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"'World War Z' just came out. It took a long time to film. It had to undergo a couple of rounds of reshoots. In the original version, instead of zombies, it was cats. But that was too scary for everybody." -Craig Ferguson

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Shortly before our 25th wedding anniversary, my husband sent 25 long-stemmed yellow roses to me at my office. A few days later, I plucked all the petals and dried them. On the night of our anniversary, I spread the petals over the bed and lay on top of them, wearing only a negligee.

As I hoped, I got a reaction from my husband.

When he saw me he shouted, "What are potato chips doing all over the bed!?"


*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*
One friend complained to another, "All my husband and I do anymore is fight. I've been so upset, I've lost 20 pounds."

"If it's that bad, why don't you just leave him?" asked the second friend.

"I'm seriously considering it, but I'd like to lose another 15 pounds first."