Monday, September 3, 2012

Door County Weekend



We headed up to Door Co, Wisconsin again for Labor Day weekend with Alex's sister, Brooke, and her husband, Anders.  We've been coming here for several years, but we've never had two back-to-back picture perfect days like we did this year.

Part of the allure of Door Co is to get away for the weekend with family, and to ride some low traffic roads in a beautiful area.  We rode both Saturday and Sunday.  Here are a few photos of our journey.

Here's Bailey's Harbor, at the public pier, where fishermen and scuba divers dock.  The low snowfall this past winter and the drought across much of the Lake Michigan watershed has lowered the water in the lake by at least a foot and a half, maybe more.


We took Bluff Rd out of Bailey's Harbor, and quickly found the bluff.  After much huffing and puffing, we crested the hill.  Here's the crew in recovery mode.


This was typical both Saturday and Sunday - Labor Day weekend.  Highways 42 & 57 which travel the perimeter of the peninsula are both heavily traveled, two-lane, non-bike-friendly roads.  The interior of the peninsula are covered with paved county roads like this.  Great for leisurely riding.  They'd be great for hard riding also, but we're on vacation!


Near Jacksonport is Cave County Park.  A limestone bluff runs right into the water.  Waves slap up against the mini-caves, producing a deep "whomp".


Here's an old schoolhouse in great condition.  It's no longer a school, but I don't know what it's used for.

At the end of the day we walked down the hill from where we stayed.


The best chocolate malt I've found comes from this store.


Ice cream, bench on Eagle Harbor, ready for sunset.


And there it is.  A perfect day.


We devised a mission to ride north of Sister's Bay to Seaquist Orchard store for cherry jam.  Door County is known far and wide for its tart cherries.  I'm not sure, but these cherry trees may belong to the Seaquist folks.  These trees stretched for a mile along this road, and stretched back maybe about 1/2 mile.  I can't believe the amount of work necessary to maintain these trees and pick the cherries.  I'm glad they do it, though, because cherry pie is my favorite!  Keeping to our tradition, we bought a fresh cherry pie and devoured it.  It never stood a chance!


This farmstead was located amongst the cherry trees. This is as close as I felt comfortable to photographing the barn - it is really cool. 


Here's to everyone out there who works hard to make our country great!  Happy Labor Day!