Grand Great Lakes family vacations

Our kids have a few "greatest hits" vacations. As school gets out and families everywhere load up the grocery-gitter and hit the road, here are some of our favorites beginning with Mackinac Island.

Arrival is by ferry boat and the Grand Hotel sends a carriage to the ferry dock to pick up guests.
Our room for the June Lilac Festival had fabulous views and a balcony. Our daughter, a junior in college here, loved trying on the plush room robes and watching the carriage traffic outside the port cochere from her perch.

Both kids, age 14 and 20 here, loved getting dressed for dinner -- a five course affair featuring fresh and local foods like Great Lakes whitefish. We love the pecan ball dessert with Grand Hotel fudge sauce -- a snowball size ice cream ball.



For true "fudgies," Michigander slang for tourist, the grandest day trip of them all begins with a ferry crossing over the Straits of Mackinac, where Great Lakes of Huron and Michigan meet, to Mackinac Island, a Belle Epoque resort that became a famous respite when the Grand Hotel opened on July 10, 1887.

The island seems to exist in another time zone altogether: Automobiles never arrived on the island and porters wheel down Main Street balancing luggage on bicycles while carriages line the docks awaiting passengers. Presiding over it all is the Grand Hotel, boasting America's longest front porch at 700 feet long - the perfect perch from which to watch the sunset and the lights of the Mackinac Bridge.

Everything is done on a grand scale here: The Grand's staff of 600 rivals the entire year-round island population of 550; at summer's zenith up to 1,500 guests might be served in the dining room by tuxedo-clad waiters bearing five-course meals as the orchestra plays. If you opt for an overnight special-occasion splurge, rooms and suites are candy-bright confections done by famed decorator Carlton Varney.

Victorian entertainments are the order of the day at this old-world resort. Croquet and lawn bowling on the lawn, an herb-strewn labyrinth for a meditative walk in the woods, carriage tours around the island and horseback riding - and a bicycle built for two on beachfront eight-mile trail around the island. Avoid the clapboard quaint downtown between noon and 6 p.m. when it's most crowded and stop in at one of the island fudge shops (it's made fresh hourly in the summer) after the crowds thin.

If You Go: Mackinac Island

Accessible by ferries, $21 and $15 kids, the island is home to America's largest summer hotel, the Grand Hotel, open through Oct. 31. Rates from $195 per person per day (tips included), breakfast and dinner daily. 

Reservations: 800-334-7263; www.grandhotel.com. Ferries every 30 minutes through Labor Day Weekend to the island

www.mackinac.com.