Door County Anniversary Trip, Day 8

Day 8 (last day!): Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Today was a drive-all-day-long kind of day. Being letterboxers, we didn't exactly take the most direct way home. But that's okay...it was Curtis' last chance to letterbox for a while. Thankfully, we were able to find both and make the most of the day.

One box took us through a marshy area in Eastern Wisconsin...thankfully, it was on a boardwalk! Still, think hot, humid, and buggy. While Curtis searched for the box, I paced back and forth just to keep them off me.

Here I am, laughing at Curtis wandering through the swamp in the background. If only he had read to the end of the clue, where it said something along the lines of "This is where the box used to be, now it's under the steps of the boardwalk"...right where I was standing. Whoops. :)

We took one more stop around Lake Geneva, then had lunch at Culvers before continuing the rest of the way home. It was bittersweet, knowing we were coming back to reality, and only had a few days together left.

Last few miles of Southwestern Wisconsin.

Crossing the Mississippi again.

Almost to Iowa!

We made it home around dinner time, which we enjoyed with Curtis' family.

It was altogether a great vacation of experiencing new things and making lots of memories that will make up for the rest of the summer. I'm so thankful we had this opportunity to take an entire week to celebrate our 2nd anniversary a little early. Now it's time to start hoping for another week to celebrate our 2nd anniversary late... ;)

Day 8 Wrap Up: Drove 450 miles, found 2 letterboxes.

Door County Anniversary Trip, Day 7

Day 7: Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Today was our last full day in Door County, and we were determined to make the most of it! With highs in the 70's and beautiful clear skies, we rose early and headed to Sister Bay to start our day.

We went back to Al Johnson's for breakfast - we needed one more serving of those amazing Swedish pancakes! 

Saying hello to the goats on the roof one last time...and yes, that's a lawn mower up there. We watched a guy mowing the grass on the roof later on as we were driving by! I guess the goats aren't doing their job right.

While planning our vacation, we thought it would be fun to try kayaking together. But after seeing the big waves of Lake Michigan every other day, we were hesitant to go out on a tiny little boat. We stopped by the kayak rental place, and the guy there said it was the perfect day for it though - it was a sign, we were supposed to go today! We rented a 2 person kayak from Bay Shore Outfitters in Sister Bay, and set off on the lake.

Our first stop was to go by the cliffs and caves of Peninsula State Park. We had of course visited here on Saturday, and it was fun to see it from another angle.

This was both of our first kayaking experience! We've done lots of canoeing, but never kayaking. We love being able to experience these firsts together. :) The lake really was perfect today. The only waves we faced were caused by other boats. We started off early enough that there were hardly any other boats out yet.

It took about a half hour to go from where we started to Peninsula State Park, across the bay. We decided to get out and check out the caves here. There was also a trail that went through this area - we enjoyed getting to walk on it without having to hike up the tall bluff!

After that, we kayaked to Horseshoe Island, one we had seen from afar on a few other occasions. We got out and decided to take the 1K trail that circled the island. As we arrived, others were leaving, and there was a boat nearby fishing, but while we hiked we had the whole island to ourselves.

Beautiful blue wildflowers!

It was here that we saw our 3rd bald eagle! (Or our 3rd sighting of the same one...who knows?)

We circled back to the kayak and headed back for Sister Bay. The entire trip took just 2 ½ hours, and the rental place was kind enough to charge us for just 2 hours. We were so glad we were able to do this today - the next day as we were leaving, we saw the waves were much higher, and we knew God provided the perfect day for us! What's weird is that while I did significantly less paddling than Curtis, I still ended up being the only one who was sore the next day. Not sure how that happened!

We had asked a lady at the tourist booth in Ellison Bay where the best place to get ice cream was, and her answer was Not Licked Yet Frozen Custard in Ephraim. So we drove a little further South to get a sundae to help cool off after our "workout". We had a Door County Cherry sundae...When in Door County, we had "Door County Cherry" flavored everything!

We stopped at Seaquist Orchard on the way back to Ellison Bay. There were so many things to sample there, we just called that our lunch for the day! I just snapped a picture of the orchard as we drove away. 

At this point, it was only 3 in the afternoon, so we found another letterboxing hike we could do for the afternoon. It was getting to be hot, humid, and buggy, but we stuck it out and enjoyed the walk. It was a little bittersweet knowing it was our last hike here...and together for a little while.

Enjoying the tree covered trails one last time.

We found this fun little hiding spot next to the lake for pictures.

After the hike, we went home and cleaned up to go to dinner. We went to Grasse's Grill in Sister Bay. We don't usually drink when at restaurants, but this was our honorary 2nd anniversary dinner date to make up for the one we won't get in July. I had a Door County Cherry Mimosa (because when in Door County, always go for the cherry!) and Curtis had a chocolate beer. They were both great, and together tasted like a chocolate covered cherry. :)

I had the barbecue bacon burger

Curtis had the fresca burger.

We went and enjoyed our last sunset at Ellison Bluff. Here, we also saw our 4th and last bald eagle. A great way to wrap up a wonderful vacation!

Day 7 Wrap Up: Hiked 4 miles, Kayaked 2.5 hours (not sure how to measure that in miles??) Found 5 letterboxes, saw 2 bald eagles.

Door County Anniversary Trip, Day 6

Day 6: Monday, June 8, 2015

Another rainy morning resulted in another easy start to the day. It's not that we were sleeping in super late, we just happened to know that rain was predicted for this morning so we decided to wait for it while resting. It did finally come, so all that waiting was not a waste! The rental house we were in happened to have a tv with 3 channels - nothing that would really interest us - and also the complete first season of Cheers. We had never heard of the show, but we managed to watch the episodes and ended up really enjoying it. :)

When the rain cleared up, we decided to head North to another state park we hadn't seen yet - Newport State Park. We took a long hike here, and once we reached the end it began raining on us again. The heavy tree cover kept us from getting too wet though, and we quickly made our way back to the car. Altogether, I think we hiked 6 miles...maybe ran the last one. :) We had no wildlife sightings here, and no views of the lake. Just another hike with the same covered trail that we'd seen everywhere! (I should have mentioned that at the beginning, that all the trails would look the same - that would've saved you some time, right?) ;)

We rewarded ourselves with pizza and gelato from Joe Jo's Pizza and Gelato in Sister Bay. We were a little disappointed because we assumed that Chicago style pizza would still be a big thing here, considering so many tourists were from Chicago, but all they had to offer was thin crust. Who does that?! The gelato and breadsticks were delicious though! We both got flavors containing the famous Door County Cherry... Gelato, not breadsticks. ;)

We went to the Ellison Bay Community Center beach to watch the sunset again. We enjoyed walking through the sand and on the dock, watching the sun disappear behind the clouds

Day 6 Wrap Up: Hiked 6 miles.

Door County Anniversary Trip, Day 5

Day 5: Sunday, June 7, 2015

Day 5 of vacation started out as another rainy day. We gave ourselves a chance to sleep in, then went to Brew coffee shop for breakfast and Silly Goose General Store just to look around. We took a short walk down to Island Orchard Cidery North of Ellison Bay. We learned some new things from the tour and enjoyed the free sampling here. 

By then, the rain cleared up, so we went and borrowed bicycles from the tourist center off of Main Street. It had been so long since either of us had ridden a bike, so we stayed off of the highway and rode a couple miles to Rowley's Bay. It was turning out to be a beautiful day, so we just enjoyed doing this new activity together.

Once we returned the bikes, we began driving down to Fish Creek for dinner. We stopped at the Wetlands on the South side of Sister Bay for a short walk and a letterbox. Perhaps wetlands aren't the best place to visit after a rain and in the late spring when it's so buggy! We made our walk fast, then continued on to Fish Creek.

Sunset point in Fish Creek

We had heard from several people that we needed to experience a traditional fish boil while we were here, and the White Gull Inn was recommended to us. We made reservations the day before, and showed up early this evening. They began preparing the food (pouring it in the big pot) around 5:15, and "boil over" was at 5:45. We sat outside and watched them go through the whole process.

Fish boils were designed to feed lots of sailors quickly and for little cost. They start with pouring the potatoes into the water, along with a lot of salt. Once those have had a chance to boil, they pour in the white fish, throw kerosene on the fire and light it up so that all the fish oil spills out. It's quite the presentation, and the guy cooking for us was quite the expert. He has been working there doing this job for 19 years!

There go the fish!

Tada!

We really enjoyed the experience of it all and were glad we did this. It was $20 per person, and that included fish and potatoes (and seconds were optional), cole slaw, a bread basket, and cherry pie with ice cream for dessert. I don't know how other fish boils in the county differ, but we did enjoy our experience at White Gull Inn!

The pie! :)

Afterwords, we drove back to Ellison Bay and watched the sunset from our car by the water. (It was too buggy to be outside here!) As the sun made it past the cloud line and before it disappeared under the lake, it lit up the sky a gorgeous pink color. It was a wonderful, laid back vacation day, for once! :)

Day 5 Wrap Up: Biked 8 miles, hiked 2 miles, found 3 letterboxes.