Wisconsin's Little Finger

Wisconsin - Door County

(Camping with friends from home!)

July 22, 2017 - July 30, 2017

Door County sits at the end of a peninsula which sticks out into Lake Michigan just East of Green Bay.  Wisconsinites call it the "thumb" but as a Michigander I scoff at that.  Michigan lays claim to the "thumb" designation.  Just look at a map of the two states below.

    

          

What Wisconsin calls a "thumb" looks more like a pinky finger sticking out into Lake Michigan while the lower peninsula of Michigan, shaped like a mitten, clearly has a thumb which sticks out into Lake Huron.  I rest my case.

Now on to our travels.

Judy and Susan, two friends from Wenatchee happened to be in the Wisconsin/Minnesota area for medical and travel reasons and we managed to work out a plan to get together in Door County and camp at Bailey's Harbor for about a week.  The entire county is beautiful, a mixture of agriculture, orchards (especially pie cherries), vinyards, wineries, lots of artists and their work, museums and some very charming towns.  They even have a ferry which leaves from the tip (of that little finger) and takes cars and passengers to Washington Island.  Gardens and flowers were everywhere.  We lucked out with the weather - it was sunny and in the low to mid 70's every day.

We saw artistic works.

Metal sculptures.

Chainsaw art (high quality).

Mixed metal and glass.

Fun with bottles, vases, etc.

This interesting work was along side the driveway of a house we drove by.
We turned around to get a picture and discovered the figures were ...

...made from plastic milk/water bottles.  So clever!

One of several "eggs" that decorate the town of Egg Harbor.

We saw flowers galore!  They clearly take great pride in their gardens and in keeping the towns looking very spiffy.

Of course there were ample views of bays and harbors.

Judy and Susan's 2 soft coated wheaten terriers loved the water however Callie likes it a bit more than Shelby.

There are museums, farms and those charming towns.

Door County Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay.

Laura checks out a periscope.

The road to the ferries at Northport (at the fingertip).
They don't have any kind of a ferry waiting area like we're used to having and they don't even move
their cars over to the side of the road.  You just suddenly find yourself behind a long line of cars.
It seems like they don't figure on people sight-seeing around the end of the road or coming to just
see the ferry.  Don't know why we didn't get a picture but it's a tiny ferry by our standards - 10 cars max.

Big farm near our campground.  They had a dairy herd as well.

One of the famous places in Door County is Al Johnson's in Sister Bay.  They have live goats grazing on their roof as you can (almost) see in the two pictures below.  They bring them in every morning from the farm to spend the day being photographed.

The darn goats wouldn't cooperate and stand up so we could see them better.

The goat silhouettes hanging from the edge of the eves display the flags of:
"unknown", Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland and Denmark

When we were visiting our friend Sandy in Meredocia ("Dosh") she told us to be sure to go to a fish boil.  There a quite a few restaurants that serve a "fish boil" meal and we decided on going to the "Old Post Office" restaurant in Ephraim (pronounced Ef-rumm).  The process starts with boiling potatoes and onions over a big fire.  After they have cooked for a specific length of time a pot containing fresh Lake Michigan whitefish is added and cooked for a specific length of time.  When everything is done the chef throws ... well, you'll see below.  

The Old Post Office Restaurant

The potatoes and onions and fish are cooking.  When they are done...

...the chef throws a can of kerosene on the fire!

The water and all the oils from the fish (which have risen to the top of the pot) boil over the top and onto the fire.

The chef and his assistant remove the two cooking pots from the boiling pot.

They place the two cooking pots into a big wash tub and allow all the water to drain off.

At this restaurant, once you get your food someone comes over to the table to debone the fish.

And now you are ready to eat.  It was delicious!
Fish Boils are so popular that at the Old Post Office Restaurant they do 3 seatings a night!

 Don't miss a fish boil dinner if you ever get to Door County or happen to find one offered somewhere else.  Yumm!