Yes – I’m excited. Yes – I’ve started packing.  Yes – Ted is making fun of me.  No – I don’t care.

My thoughts and my spirit are already on the island, and this time next Sunday – good Lord willing – my body will have arrived also.  To say I’m looking forward to this trip would be the understatement of the century.  After all, we haven’t been to Mackinac in almost a year, and that’s just way too long for someone like me, who thinks Mackinac should be a moon and the earth should revolve around it!

Ted and I are so blessed to be making this trip, and before I go any further, I want to stop and thank Stefanie Congdon, the General Manager at The Inn at Stonecliffe for inviting me up to write about this beautiful resort destination.  I can hardly wait to explore the Inn, which was built in 1904 as the largest summer residence on Mackinac.  There are 16 guestrooms in the Mansion and 31 suites in the Summer House.  And yes, I plan to explore both places AND all the surrounding grounds.

Starting tonight, I’ll be publishing on both this site and on Bree’s Mackinac Island Blog (http://bree1972.wordpress.com), and I’ll continue to do that until I’ve written the final post about Stonecliffe.  I’m hoping to publish something each day from the island, and the posts will be the same on both blogs – so you can choose which to access.  I’ll be focused on Stonecliffe but also plan to cover as much of the island as I can in four days and nights – and I’m so hoping you’ll come along for all the fun!

As friend Molly McGreevy shows in this and the next photo, the Lady Slippers . . .

. . . and the Trillium are blooming, and Molly says she’s already seen a few lilacs in bloom!

And  those Mackinac sunrises just keep on getting better and better! (Photo: Clark Bloswick)

So . . . I’m not planning to post again until I’m on the island (no Thursday blog this week).  If we’re Facebook friends, you can follow along on Sunday as we make the trip from the Daytona Beach airport to the Traverse City airport – with stops in Atlanta and Detroit.  If things go as planned, we’ll be on Mackinac around 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.  Can you believe we’ll be arriving on my birthday?  Could I girl ask for a better gift?!!

Hop on board with us Sunday, and we’ll all go to Mackinac! 

A huge thank you to John Rice for the header photo – a sailor’s eye view (from the freighter Roger Blough) of Mackinac Island after dark. Here’s another one!

God bless.