I was at a political conference on Mackinac Island in Michigan. This is in northern Michigan. At every session, there was tons of food and the island is a monument to fudge making. Every politico was handing out small boxes of fudge. Even the lobby our the hotel where we stayed was a fudge shop.
It was a no brainer to forgo staying at the Grand Hotel (featured in the Christopher Reeves, movie, "Somewhere in Time). The $600 room rate was a bit over our budget, even if it did include all (gourmet) meals for free.
Getting to the main conference at the Grand Hotel was either by horse drawn carriage or walking up the hill. Did I mention it was hot and many conference sessions, the hotel dress policy required men to wear suits? Whew!
Fortunately, there many sessions in other hotels served hors d’oeuvres and I could eat cheese, sip wine and ignore the deserts. Had it not been for the buffet breakfast at our hotel. I would not have made it. Getting off the ferry on the mainland returned me to the real world. Pressing my gas pedal to increase speed instead of hearing the carriage driver say, “giddy-up” was a change. Not viewing one of the big Percheron horses lift his tail was also welcome.