Door County is Wisconsin’s thumb that sticks out into Lake Michigan. It’s as if the state is trying to hitch a ride on the next boat plying the waters of the big lake. The small city of Sturgeon Bay is a maritime town that sits at the foot of Door County. We enjoyed watching the boat traffic going though the draw bridge in Sturgeon Bay.

I have never been to maritime New England, but have always longed to go. The coastal towns of Maine and New Hamphsire intrigue me. However, Wisconsin is blessed with an area that probably comes kind of close to mirroring coastal New England. If you hold up your hand in the shape of a glove, your thumb would be a facsimile of Wisconsin’s Door County. With 300 miles of lake shore jutting into Lake Michigan; with an active ship-building industry in Sturgeon Bay, Door County’s largest city; with marinas filled to the brim with white sail boats and big ocean going yachts; with ferries visiting nearby islands; and with a thriving fishing fleet, Door County is maritime.

Amazingly, every inch of Door County is beautifully manicured and landscaped. How can that be? I did a Google search to see if Door County had some kind of ordinance that mandated every property owner to plant and maintain about a million flowers. I didn’t find any such mandate. Last week, we visited the quaint town of Bayfield way up in the northern tip of Wisconsin. I marveled at how well manicured that town was. Door County is Bayfield on steroids. Actually, I submit that Door County had so many quaint towns that they borrowed one to Bayfield County.

When we were traveling in New Mexico, I complained a bit about cities like Las Cruces and even Taos. These towns were brand spanking new with modern infrastructure and newly constructed businesses. The only problem was that these cities had endless miles of string streets feeding the city with franchise restaurants, strip malls, box stores, and the haphazard mish-mash of signage that goes with them. This modern Americana has no character and becomes tacky as it ages.

Door County, somehow, whether through municipal planning or just luck, avoided all of this. Outside of Sturgeon Bay, the only real city in Door County (population - 9,000), there are no franchise businesses, and even Sturgeon Bay has a very limited franchise presence. No, Door County is strictly mom’n’pop. Granted, it’s mostly high-end’ish mom’n’pop, but I guess you need some wealth to afford all that spectacular landscaping. The result is clever and tasteful signage, stores with cool themes, awesome high-end junk art, and shops with character.

Of course, Door County is much more than picturesque shops. With all that coastline, the natural setting is pristine and lovely. The pure white dolomite rock underlying the peninsula contrasts nicely with the lush greenery of the thick cedar forests. Yes, you can say that I really like Door County.

Our camper, V-Jer, needed some maintenance, so we made an appointment at Bayside Outdoors, a camper service center that specializes in NuCamp campers, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. V-Jer, a NuCamp T@B 400 camper, had over 10,000 miles on it. It was time to repack the wheel bearings and tweak a thing or two. The appointment was for this morning at 10 am. Knowing this, I had made a three-day campsite reservation at Peninsula State Park, a giant state park right on Lake Michigan, in the heart of Door County. We had Saturn, our big cargo van, set up for van camping. After dropping off V-Jer, we headed up to set up camp.

On our way, we stopped off to roam around downtown Sturgeon Bay. It is the gateway to Door County. It has two large modern ship-building and dry-dock facilities on the waterfront. Interestingly, these industrial facilities, being so modern, actually enhance the waterfront appearance. The rest of the waterfront is lined with nice restaurants, condos, big houses, shops, walkways, marinas, etc.

The historic Downtown, just a block off the waterfront, is thriving and sets the stage for the rest of Door County. The shops are quaint and there are lots of flowers in hanging baskets and in large pots. The downtown features a cherry theme with a couple of dozen large cherry sculptures, each sporting a different theme. Door County is home to many cherry orchards. Several local artisan wineries make batches of Door County cherry wines as their highlighted beverage.

The two main streets that feed the downtown feature drawbridges that were fun to watch operate when tall sailboats or big commercial ships needed to pass. Sturgeon Bay is bisected by a large channel that connects the bayside of Lake Michigan with the lakeside of Lake Michigan. This channel cuts 150 miles off the water route from Chicago to Green Bay. With southern Sturgeon Bay residing in Wisconsin’s mainland and the northern half of the city anchoring the foot of the Door Peninsula, it technically makes Door County an island, not a peninsula. I guess it is still called a peninsula because the channel originally didn’t go all the way through from the bayside to the lakeside. In 1881, the connecting 1.3 mile channel was dug. This not only shortened the water route, it allowed ships to avoid the dangerous route around the northern tip of Door County, aptly name Death’s Door, due to all the ship wrecks littering the lake bottom up there.

Downtown Sturgeon Bay.

There are several cherry sculptures in downtown Sturgeon Bay.

The sturgeon fish is a big primitive looking relic from the ancient past that still lurks in many Wisconsin waterways. This Masonic Temple in Sturgeon Bay celebrates the sturgeon fish with this sculpture.

I suspect that these white blocks were locally quarried from the dolomite rock that underlies Door County.

Sturgeon Bay is an active maritime city.

Two big commercial boats being attended to at one of the ship facilities in Sturgeon Bay. Sturgeon Bay is also home to a luxury yacht building facility.

This is a mobile bar in Sturgeon Bay where the patrons pedal while drinking - the ultimate in drinking and driving. We first saw this concept in Fort Worth at a bar next to the Amtrak station when we went on our train vacation to visit Wanda’s relatives in Del Rio, Texas. I still love trains.

It may not be a craft beer, but the price is right.

Finally, around 2 pm, we set up camp at Peninsula State Park. In my mind, Peninsula State Park and Devil’s Lake State Park near Madison, Wisconsin, are Wisconsin’s two Crown Jewels in the state’s extensive park system. Peninsula State Park has it all: 8 miles of coastline; a restored lighthouse; thick forests; a gorgeous 18-hole golf course that makes me wish that I golfed; three campgrounds with nicely isolated and roomy campsites; miles of hiking paths; miles of biking paths; a giant observation tower; dolomite cliffs; a sand beach; a summer outdoor theater; boat launches; and even a food truck selling grilled meats for picnickers too lazy to grill themselves.

Setting up camp was a breeze. We just staked down our self-opening pop-up privacy shower-tent and, well, that’s it. So, it was off to drive around the peninsula to visit the little artsy towns and find a restaurant for supper. We also needed to check out the ferry to Washington Island for times and cost. Weather willing, we wanted to ebike the island and perhaps even take another ferry to Rock Island on the other side of Washington Island.

We first drove up to Gill’s Rock, where the Washington Island ferry is located. The ferry runs from 6 am to 6 pm. It costs $14 per person and $5 per bike. With that info tucked away in our noggins we checked the weather forecast. It didn’t look very promising.

Dark Skies used to be my go-to weather app. It has a terrific layout and it was amazingly accurate. Then Apple bought it out. The layout remains great but the accuracy went all to hell. Wunderground and the Weather Channel apps aren’t nearly as intuitive as Dark Skies. They both give radically different forecasts than the new Dark Skies, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into more accuracy - just different. Oh well, it is what it is. The best forecast is probably to hang your head outside and look up at the sky.

We zig-zagged our way down the eastern lakeside of Door County until we landed in Bailey’s Harbor. The lakeside is usually about 5º cooler than the western bayside. Traditionally, this has kept most of the tourists away from the lakeside towns, making the few towns on the lakeside quite lazy and less developed. However, with the bayside towns getting very crowded we noticed that Bailey’s Harbor has developed a lot in the last few years. There is now a craft brewery selling $8 pints (ouch); plenty of expensive restaurants; cool B’n’Bs; and all the flowers you can ask for.

Dark Skies sent me a notification predicting dark skies. We looked up and sure enough, a big black cell was creeping in from the south. It seems that weather apps’ accuracy increases the closer it gets to the present. We thought it might slip by us to the south so we continued to seek out a place to eat. Chives Restaurant fit the bill.

Chives was a smallish building with indoor seating. However, the building was flanked by a food truck featuring outdoor grilled meats on the left, and an outdoor wood-fired pizza oven on the right. There was also plenty of outdoor patio seating. Although I yearned for the fire-roasted pizza, we chose the food truck because they had a giant grilled portobello mushroom sandwich that looked even more enticing. And we were right, the sandwich was simply perfection.

Although we felt a sprinkle or two, we felt cocky enough to walk to the northern end of town to Ridges Sanctuary. Ridges used to be a small shallow bay that got filled in with ridges of sand dunes over a couple thousand years of wave action. The sand ridges are now covered with a dark dense forest of cedars giving it an eerie ambiance. Between each long ridge is a swampy waterway filled with lilly pads and bull rushes. Paths and boardwalks snake around the sanctuary. It has alway been a favorite place of ours to hike. Sadly, just as we were entering the sanctuary on the long boardwalk, the rain began in earnest. We ran back to Saturn.

On our drive from Gill’s Rock to Bailey’s Harbor we stopped off at Cana Island Lighthouse. Lake Michigan’s lake level fluctuates dramatically over the years. Currently it is very high. Getting to the lighthouse is now an adventure.

Notice the white dolomite rocks along the coastline.

Bailey’s Harbor, home of the $8 pint of beer.

Chive restaurant’s food truck. We had a portobello mushroom sandwich from the food truck.

The grill behind Chive’s food truck where some big roasts were being slow-cooked.

By the time we crossed back to the other side of the peninsula to Ephram, the sky cleared. Actually, I don’t think it rained at all in Ephram. Ephram is one of a half dozen or so towns on the bayside that are just beautiful. We parked Saturn and walked the town. An excellent blues band was playing in an open-sided gazebo in a small town park. We caught five or six tunes before continuing on our walking tour.

It was sunset when we returned to Peninsula State Park. The park used to have an old observation tower on a cliff overlooking Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, it was condemned and torn down. For a couple of years no tower existed and I really missed it. To our surprise, a new replacement tower was built and we stopped to watch the sunset from the top. Most observation towers have a set of arduous stairs to climb. This tower has those stairs, but it also has an insanely long and winding handicap accessible ramp that slowly found its way to the top. I’ve never seen anything like that.

With the sun down, it was time to shower and hit the van-sack.

Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum.

Dave and Wanda

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