Special Mom’s blog

Today was our penultimate day of our trip. We leave early tomorrow morning. We left Sault Ste Marie today morning and the funny part was my special boy was happy to leave 😊 (maybe camping doesn’t suit his needs). Usually he hesitates when we vacate a hotel room but today he was the first one to get into the car. My husband on the other hand kept missing directions to the US border and we were circling around a good 15 minutes. Contrary to normal the immigration and customs officer was nice, smiled at us and even said Welcome Home . He was an young chap.

A few years back a friend had mentioned about Mackinaw island and this had been in my mind for a long time. I mentioned this to my husband and told him why not make a pit stop on the way back. His natural reaction was a “NO”. I felt I had his blessings and started searching for rooms. Okay, you can’t book rooms on the island but can do on the mainland, Mackinaw city. A lake view room with a decent price popped up and I was able to convince my husband. Being the middle of the week was an added advantage.

Even without checking into the hotel, we caught a ferry to the islands on Lake Huron. Mackinaw island’s unique feature is there are no motorized vehicles. Just horse drawn careiages and bikes. You can also use your God given legs. As soon as we reached we were forced into a fudge store. I would say my special one pushed us in.

This followed a visit to an icecream shop.

And then we were ready to explore the island on foot. My younger one rented a bike. I wanted to get on to a horse driven carriage. But they were too slow and expensive. We had a sugar loaded boy and we thought walking was the best option.

We went to a butterfly garden (very expensive) but we found my boy was scared of all those free flying butterflies. I think seeing him getting scared of something made our day.

A slice of pizza and a soda (anything more you need to take a loan) my younger one guided us on a beautiful hiking path or trail. Here are some pictures to enjoy.

Around 6.30 pm my family returned back to mainland and checked into our Lake view hotel room. The weather is chilly here. Not a beach day. But the sound and sight of waves can make anyone happy.

My instant pot was my best friend all through this trip. I had a rice cooker along with it and these two saved us not only money and time but gave us healthy food. A big salute to them.

We walked nearly 4 to 5 miles on the island today. It did not happen just like that. We walk with our special one religiously every day and that hard work paid off. We really want to come back to this island again and spend more time and maybe even make my boy bike with his brother. Anything you achieve requires hard work. We have started making him bike at home and most probably he would be more fluent before our next trip.

As I wrote on the first day, it was all about learning self regulation by my boy. Things change and circumstances change and he had to adapt. Yes, we tried to give him comfort as much as possible and he needed to meet us in between. We had our tantrums and meltdowns but that was just a tiny part. He learnt to live in new places, the campground was a new surrounding, the hikes and the walks were longer, he had to live out of a suitcase and eat food that was available. Overall it was a great learning experience.

We are nearly 550 miles away from home and I am hoping we all will be sleeping in our own beds tomorrow night and resting ourselves as the weekend rolls.