Way Off Season

 It looked like a scene out of an apocalypse.

We drove through Mackinaw City earlier this month just to spend a weekend north. It was past the peak fall colors of northern Michigan. In fact, the orange, crimson and gold on the leafy trees had turned to rust or had just disappeared altogether. It was cold too, not quite cold enough for snow but cold enough to make you thankful for wearing a down jacket.

Since I like to avoid crowds when we travel, I figured that we should be in our element here in Mackinaw City which ordinarily bustles with tourists, many of whom take the ferry to Mackinac Island to enjoy a breezy day exploring a collection of old hotels and fudge shops with only horses and bikes to get around since motorized vehicles are prohibited.

We saw the big ferries that shepherd a couple hundred of passengers each over to the island and back. But they sat drydocked and winterized onshore, empty and seemingly forgotten. That seemed to apply somewhat to the town itself. Nearly all the hotels were closed, as were most restaurants and other businesses. Very, very few people on the streets though this city entertains up to two million visitors yearly.

Well, we were only in town one night. Really, this was just a stop on our way to see the Tahquamenon Falls where they had installed this year a 142-foot aluminum bridge spanning the lower falls. Now you can walk to an island there where you normally had to use a boat. Since it was so late in the season, we might even have the bridge and island to ourselves.

At our resort hotel, much of the kitchen equipment and furniture was covered with plastic for the season. They weren't entertaining many guests the night we were there. In fact, the empty corridors and eerie quiet made us feel as if we were guests of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Wendy said she expected our hotel room door to splinter with Nicholson poking his head in to say, “Here's Johnny!”

Next day we had breakfast at a bar that opened in the morning for the few remaining tourists in town. I asked our waitress, where were the people? I knew that hunters frequented northern Michigan in the fall. Not in Mackinaw City, I was told. Locally they call this month "no-mo-November,” she said, no-mo meaning no money. The only businesses still open were a couple candy shops (we knew that as we had already visited those).

So we crossed the Mackinaw Bridge and headed northeast in the Upper Peninsula to the Falls. When we got there I was in the common vernacular of the British, gobsmacked. The parking lot for the lower falls was empty and there were monster construction vehicles near the edge of the parking lot, blocking all access to the Tahquamenon River there. I assume they were working on a new visitor's center perhaps? There was nothing about that on the official Tahquamenon Falls website which claims the park is open year-round.  I think that would be a “need to know before you go”, don't you?

Clark Griswold: Roy, could you imagine if you had driven all the way to Florida and it was closed?

Roy Walley: Closed? Uh, they don't close Florida.

(From National Lampoon's Vacation)

Since we were here anyway, we drove the short distance to the upper falls parking lot. Again, not a soul around. The Tahquamenon Falls is a top tourist attraction in Michigan, hosting over a half a million visitors yearly. Today, they were hosting just two, my wife and me. It was cold; it was rainy too. But I got my pictures of the upper falls. Then we started the five-hour drive back home again. Next time maybe we'll travel not so far out of season.