I have been horribly amiss, and I must officially apologize to all of my readers. I promised you an update some time ago on my visit to Door County Wisconsin and I didn’t update. I now must run away and hide in shame . . . (disappears with hanging head) Okay, I’m back! with the long ago promised post about all the awesome things I got to experience at Door County. I already hit on some of this before in my “I’ve arrived“ post on the trip up there, but for clarity’s sake I’ll touch on some of it again. The trip up there was actually kind of my idea since my family was caving into my desire to check out the Great Lakes. Despite living in the midwest area for most of my life, I’d never had the chance to check out the Great Lakes and it was on my bucket list of things to see 🙂 Since my mom and her sister had been up to the area a long time ago, they knew that it had a lot to offer so we soff we went! As you already know, the great lakes are the 5 huge waterways (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior) up in the northern portion of Midwestern USA, with Wisconsin touching both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. If you look carefully, you’ll see that Wisconsin has a tiny little finger that sticks out into Lake Michigan. The finger of land is known as Door County, while the little inlet of water that pokes into Wisconsin is known as the ever famous Green Bay, home of the Green Bay Packers. Set up against beaches, stunning landscapes, gorgeous lighthouses, and the site of stunning natural vistas, Door County has become famous as the chosen home of numerous famous American artists.
Here’s a better picture of the area
You will note that the in the picture above, the finger is split into half at the town of Sturgeon Bay. Technically the upper portion is an island connected to the mainland by a couple of bridges in Sturgeon Bay. We stayed at Sturgeon Bay and then ventured out from there 🙂
ACCOMODATIONS
We stayed on the Island side at a little off-the-beaten-track motel called the “Beach Harbor Resort.” We thought we’d be in the area after peak season since we went so late in September, but everything was still going hard. Consequently, the hotels in the area had some steep prices, and we were happy to find a room here at this resort for approximately $100. Even better, the resort had a little local bar attached to it with live music Friday night and our room was right on the beach. Literally, we walked outside our door and the beach was right there. You could rent Kayaks, Jet Skis, and other gear if you wanted to go out on the water, plus there was a little fire pit for picnics and nights on the water. The only downside was the fact that our door was missing it’s lock, but we stuck a chair under the door and it worked out perfectly 🙂
FOOD
Local Menu
Food was actually kind of a hit-and-miss for us, although I definitely ate my way through Wisconsin’s cheese curd supply. They were to die for! Wisconsians apparently don’t get up early in the morning, since nothing opened up until 9:00 a.m., so breakfast was hard to come by. We did finally locate a local diner up on the main square that opened early, but that was the only place we saw. The little restaurant in the hotel was pretty good, but like many of the local food sites, it focused on burgers, friends, and fish. Most of the restaurants are a variety of Sports Bar, but there were a few fine dining establishments. Personally, I loved the food, but my mom and her sister missed having some vegetable-based dishes 😛 We quickly discovered that recognizable name-brands were few and far between, but local dishes are more fun anyway! We did run into the problem of it being A. homecoming and B. Peak season so many of the better places had high prices and long lines. The second night we actually ended up at a small Irish pub, which surprisingly had some amazing dishes. We were expecting the same food we’d seen everywhere else, but we were delighted to find food like Shepherd’s Pie (my meal for the night and quite the dish too!).
SHOPPING
We stayed for the weekend, so we spent Saturday shopping around. We followed a long road that runs up one side of the island along the waterfront and then comes back down the other side. All along the road, little stores and towns dotted the landscape. Most were small galleries, craft stores, food marts, and museums. Personally, I could have spent all day in the Lindens Gallery of Asian Antiques. It was like visiting a real museum in Asia–they had items from all over the Asianic area–Japan, Tibet, China, and more. It took my breath away; this is the kind of place I hope to own one day. My mom and Aunt were more enthused with the Craft and Art galleries, which were pretty seriously awesome. My favorite was the one shown below. It had some neat wind spinners–they were huge, but still spun in the wind. Since it was stormy that day, they were all awhirl! If you’re interested, Fish Creek and Egg Harbor had the best shopping potential.
GREAT VIEWS
While we were hoping for some great views of the water on our road trip, most of the waterfront is privately owned and hidden by trees, homes, and gates. So we were lucky to grab a view every so often, but what a view it was!
FLOWERS
The Door County area is filled with artists, and they keep their landscape as creatively decorated as their galleries and stores. We were blessed to have the opportunity to visit while the flowers were all in full bloom!
RANDOMNESS
One of my favorite parts of visiting these places is to check out all the random things you see that make that place unique. Our visit to Door County brought us wonderfully huge kites and hot air balloons floating above our heads, crafty pumpkins dressed like animated characters, decorated gas station walls, bonfires, and even a small restaurant with goats eating on the roof! How fun is that!?!
We had an amazing vacation, and I would definitely check it out again some day. If you’re interested in heading up there, here are a few sites that might help you plan your visit!
Deceptively Blonde 
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