We departed early from Saugatuck for the 4 hour drive up to the ferry to Mackinac Island. Genevieve carried some of her own luggage.
These clueless fools decided to ride on the top of the ferry, when it was 65 degrees and windy as possible.
Genevieve thought riding on the boat was almost as exciting as the dune buggy.
16 minutes later, we were in a carriage.
To the Grand Hotel, please!
Yes, yes, this will do.
And boom!
A Carleton Varney designed room.
If this looks familiar, he was Dorothy Draper's protege and she designed The Greenbrier, where T and I stayed 2 years ago.
I was in pattern heaven.
We checked out our view of the lake!
We met Abby, Aunt Shirley and Papi to check out the rest of the hotel.
This is the view from the front porch, the longest in the world.
Included in a stay at The Grand Hotel is a 5 course dinner and breakfast daily. That sounds lovely, except when you have a toddler who is potty training.
Lady G carefully selected macaroni and cheese off of the children's menu.
She ate most of it, then she leaned over and announced to me in this gorgeous dining room, "I have to poop."
Awesome.
Now the tricky thing with G is that she is terrified of the sound of toilets flushing. Especially those damn automatic ones. So I took her in the most gorgeously appointed bathroom ever, only to have her scream and refuse to sit on the toilet.
Trinity continued to enjoy his 5 course meal and cocktails while I ruminated in hell in the bathroom.
Finally, she decided to put on a diaper and go find a quiet place to "poop."
That would not be in the bathroom, because of all of those flushing toilets.
So we found this beautiful area in the parlor and I swooned over that palm print.
I needed a picture of at least how nice we looked before we got down to business.
Fortunately, no one was in this little alcove area.
There was a lot of effort and red facing it as I sang Baby Beluga softly in her ears as encouragement.
I was really missing my 4th course about now.
She finished and screamed "I'm done!"
Now this is when all hell broke loose.
She took off into the main parlor, where guests were enjoying cocktails and the music of this beautiful harpist. My child was running away from me, announcing, "I pooped!"
As I chased my child, I thought about how much this entire scene was like that classic version of Jack and the Beanstalk.
Here is the beautiful harpist-
And here is Betsy the Giant, fee fi fo fumming through that beautiful room trying to catch my tiny "Jack."
My glamorous Jackie Kennedy feelings of grace quickly gave way to Giantess chasing poopy toddler.
I finally caught her and carried her in a football hold to the nearest elevator.
After a bath she went back to quietly coloring on the geranium stationery of the hotel.
G had eaten most of her macaroni and cheese before this all occurred, so she was fine. I had gotten through 3 small courses. I enjoyed some nice peanut butter crackers from her snack bag as my 4th course. Thank God Trinity had enough sense to bring me dessert when he came back up.
We all slept well and I woke up ready for Day 3.
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