As you can tell from the past few blog posts, I love Mackinac Island. I loved it from afar for many years as a daytime visitor. After this summer, I can say I also love it as a seasonal worker and resident. Seeing it up close every day for the past six months only deepened my love for this place.
But…I also miss Alaya and our boat life. I miss dolphins most of all.
After six months of island life, it was time to say goodbye and get back to our girl and the dolphins. Mackinac wasn’t going to make it easy to say goodbye though. October on Mackinac Island was nothing short of magical. The crowds were smaller and the leaves were popping.
Our fall love fest began with a hayride around the state park with many of our parks coworkers and friends. Surprisingly, this was Lucas and my first “carriage” ride all season – we highly recommend it!
Since the fort’s ticket booth hours had been seasonally cut, I fit in a few more daytime bike rides while Lucas worked. I started exploring more interior island routes with my bike, chasing fall colors. Prior to that I generally biked the exterior loop and hiked the interior due to the difficulty of getting my bike up the initial bluff. Turns out the interior bike paths are just as beautiful. Lesson learned for next year.
We had the good fortune to catch another solar storm while we were still on the island. We could actually see changes in color with the naked eye and the photos were stunning. There were waves of light everywhere we looked. To add to the magic, we watched the show from an empty dock on the eastern shore of the island with some of the coolest people.
Lucas and I worked hard to wrap up our work commitments before leaving the island. My last day of work at the park was October 11, which gave me and the other leads time to organize our office, clean uniforms and prep for next year. Lucas’ last day at the park was October 14, which allowed him some visitor-free time with the shorter fort hours to knock out some bigger projects like replacing the storm doors on the bat cave.
We wrapped up work on the Sip N’ Sail with one last cruise on October 12. We had a lovely group of guests and had an impromptu crew party on the Queen afterward. I wasn’t so sure about this side gig when Lucas first proposed it this spring, but I’m now very grateful for it. It was a great way to meet another group of people on the island while earning some extra money. It also got us out on the water and helped us keep our sea legs. I didn’t get seasick on any of the cruises and I only spilled drinks during one rolly cruise – victory!
And just like that, it was time to go. We packed our totes and cleaned our apartment. We hosted one last pizza party in our apartment. We caught the 2 p.m. ferry to Mackinac City the next day, October 15. We rode the tandem to the parking lot and packed up the VW. We started the drive south.
It was only when we reached the highway that I realized I left my driver’s license at the island ferry office. A quick phone call to our lovely friend, Emily (who was still on the island) and we continued on our way. She put my license in the mail that afternoon…one last piece of Mackinac magic.
Our first season on Mackinac Island was officially complete.
