Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Open the Door...

This past weekend Toni & I went up to Door County, Wisconsin for a much needed change of scenery/break from the monotony. Toni started the 5+ hour drive and got us just north of Milwaukee where I took over the driving for the remainder of the trip up to Bailey's Harbor. We stayed at a small motel/inn on the Lake Michigan side of the peninsula (the other side faces Green Bay). Our room had a beautiful lake view. We just sat on our bed and enjoyed the view for about an hour.

Across the street from the inn was a small local bar, The Blue Ox, which was decorated with miscellaneous antiques from the mid-19th century through the early 20th century-- including 2 antique barber chairs, a couple of old Edison gramaphones, and even a mounted deer head with Mardi Gras beads strewn through its antlers. As is with normal with bar/pub fare-- the burgers were greasy and absolutely delicious. After dinner we went for a walk up and down Rte. 57 checking out the shops, confectioners, and etc. The one location which happened to catch my eye was a gourmet popcorn place which had a sign on the side of the building indicating the entrance to the dental office was around the back-- now that's what I call 1-stop shopping!

The next morning we drove over to Sister Bay (on the Green Bay side) for breakfast. After breakfast we walked over to a small park and realized it was the very park where we'd watched the sunset on our last visit back on Memorial Day weekend 2004.

Door County is known for their cherries, so no visit is complete without a trip to one of the many cherry farms/wineries. We picked up a few bottles of cherry wine and a jar of Cherry salsa before continuing on to Egg Harbor where we had to (especially given Toni's nationality) stop at the British Store. I picked up a 4 pack of Tetley's Beer for myself and we picked up a pint glass and a couple of bottles of some of the more obscure beers as a Father's Day gift for my father-in-law.

After our brief shopping excursion we headed to Peninsula State Park, rented a few bicycles, and cycled to the Eagle Bluff lighthouse located in the park to take a few pictures. Given that it was a good 20-30 degrees hotter on the Green Bay side than on the Lake Michigan side of the peninsula (about 90 compared to the low-mid 60s on the Lake)-- we'd worked up quite a sweat, but decided to go to the Cana Island Lighthouse before returning to our hotel. Due to the drastic difference in temperatures, Cana Island and the causeway between the island and mainland were enveloped in a thick rolling blanket of fog-- but we did manage to get some really cool pictures as a result.

We returned to our room for dinner (we'd brought cheese, crackers, pitas, hummus, wine, and I'd picked up some summer sausage) and then drove over to Egg Harbor to watch the sunset.

On our trip home yesterday we drove threw some seriously heavy rain. We had to pull over twice (once on I-94 and once on Finley Rd.) and turn our hazards on as the rain was so heavy that not even our wipers going at full speed were doing anything to help our visibility. As is normal with storms of that intensity-- the rain passed quickly.

Because the weather had been so hot in our absence and the A.C. had been off all weekend, Toni & I returned to a greenhouse.

All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable trip, the only thing we didn't enjoy was that the time had passed far too quickly-- but isn't that the way it always goes with these three day weekends?

12 comments:

St. Dickeybird said...

Sounds like a great weekend.
If you're ever in a Britshop again, look for Fryes Cream Bars. The best chocolate bar ever.

Gourmet Popcorn??? what is this world coming to?

Perplexio said...

Dickeybird: With the "gourmet" popcorn, at least the dentist had an office "Up the stairs in back" to handle all of those "Gourmet Chipped Teeth."

dantallion said...

Sounds like a great way to do a long weekend. I can't get over the 20-30 degree differential in temp. Will you be posting any pics?

Perplexio said...

dantallion: Actually, yes I will, hopefully sometime over the next couple of days. We were using a digital camera and I've already exported the pics to my desktop at home.

tornwordo said...

Sounds fun. I love visiting lighthouses.

Bar L. said...

Sounds like a fun trip. I hope you took advantage of being pulled over on the side of the road in the rain :)

Jay Noel said...

What a great weekend.

What's cherry salsa???

phlegmfatale said...

that sounds quite lovely. Yes, 3 day weekends go by way too quickly, but it's nice to get the little extra break just the same. Glad you had fun!

Susan as Herself said...

Mmmmmmmm. I can just taste those cherries. And I have "a thing" about lighthouses...

Sounds like a great time all around!!

Green Eyes said...

So glad you got to have a weekend away, even if it was way too short. Good for you!

Snooze said...

It's so good to get out of town for a bit, and nothing beats a road trip.

Perplexio said...

tornwordo: Lighthouses are the coolest!

barbara: If it had been a remote country road, we might have. But I-94 is not the best location for that particular kind of spontaneity

leazwell: I love those jaunts myself, but they just pass way too quickly.

phoenix: It was a great weekend, and Cherry salsa is salsa made with cherries in it. I'm not a big fan of raw tomatoes so, when it comes to non-tomato salsas I'm generally willing to try. I really dig corn-based salsas, and figured that the cherry salsa was worth a go.

phlegmfatale: It was an excellent opportunity to "re-connect" with my wife (not that we were ever "disconnnected"-- it's just a really good opportunity to strengthen those connections).

susan: Yeah, I'm a sucker for cherries and also have a thing about lighthouses.

green eyes: aren't they always too short though?

snooze: You're absolutely right-- nothing beats a road trip-- and Wisconsin is a much more picturesque state to drive through than Illinois (which is just a lot of really flat land and corn as far as the eye can see).