Early morning view from our balcony at the Chippewa Hotel Thursday - Day 8 (July 20, 2023) This morning has a light drizzle, but not enough to cause problems. Our trip to the Island was scheduled to coincide with a Mackinac Bridge Authority Meeting at the Mackinac Island Community Hall, which was constructed in 1839 as the Mackinac County Courthouse. The meeting was this morning. The only person in the room who I had met before was Executive Secretary Kim Nowack, but after having watched several meeting on Youtube during Covid the members of the Board were all familiar. It was interesting learning more about the condition of the bridge and the work being done to it. The change approved which is most likely to effect people relying on the bridge is that after almost 66 years, the MBA voted to stop accepting Canadian currency. Handling the 4,000 or so dollars in Canadian currency each month has been expensive for the Bridge Authority, forced MBA to hire an armored car, and resulted in offering a disadvantageous exchange rate which generated complaints from customers. The change will be effective October 1, 2023.
Today meals were lunch on the deck at Patrick Doud's Irish Pub and supper at 1852 Grill Room. Doud's is a new place this year, named for a prominent carpenter who was born on the Island to Irish immigrants in 1861. Many Island residents are descendants of the family. We had whitefish spread, blue cheese chips, and Guinness baked onion soup. I really enjoyed the fresh fried chips and they had a lot of the blue cheese cream sauce, green onions, bacon, and balsamic glaze.
We had only dined at 1852 Grill Room once before, several years ago. At 5PM I booked a reservation for 6:30PM (later times were taken), then called and requested a water view. When we arrived an hour and a half later, the hostess was alert to our request and took us to one of the only seven water view tables in a full restaurant. There was nice piano music and excellent food and service. I even took a picture of our server who was a lot of fun. We had planked whitefish and prime rib. Both were outstanding. There were 8 items on the dessert menu and three of them sounded great, giving us a hard choice. The peanut butter pie with Ryba's hot fudge sauce we shared was wonderful!
The balance of the day was low key, revisiting Fort Mackinac, and some of our favorite downtown and Market Street shops and attractions.
Myk Rise was still out ill and we before deciding where to go, we walked Main Street checking out the various live music options. After some night photography, we returned to Winchester's Whiskey & Bourbon Room, where Tommy Sklut was playing piano, taking requests and getting everyone in the bar to sing along, loudly! You could hear them a half block down the street. Tommy is not a regular at the bar.
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