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Great Lakes: Part 1 - Traveling to Door County, Wisconsin

Eclectic! Offbeat! Those were the words I hoped would describe our Great Lakes Road Trip.

We circumnavigated these puddles the old fashioned way - in our car. Gnats be damned - we were off, scooting across Wisconsin to the famed Door County nestled on Lake Michigan. My co-worker dubbed it "Bore County" yet we found plenty to enjoy. One favorite: grass-chewing goats atop the roof of Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant in Sister Bay. Don’t peek around back and spoil the mystery & magic of "just how DO they get those goats up there?"

In Peninsula State Park, the crabby lighthouse keeper at Eagle Bluff Lighthouse saved us some money - we bypassed the tour, instead climbing the 75 foot Eagle Tower to admire the view of distant Horseshoe Island - deep green atop cobalt blue waters. The camera captured jittery Son’s proud moment as Grandma & Grandpa coaxed him to try the periscope at the tower’s edge. Tiny bats stretched on the cool stone buildings as an artist inside worked a painting before our eyes at one of many galleries in the charming all-white-by-law structures dotting Ephraim’s harbor.

Another highlight: secluded serenity at The Ridges Sanctuary, a 1200 acre nature preserve in Bailey’s Harbor. Sandals clomped down the wooden boardwalk that stretched through the dense forest, past the dainty white clapboard lighthouse, to the shining sea of Lake Michigan. Spying yellow Lady Slippers nestled in the woods I felt privy to a secret treasure shared by few.

Hang on! We’re tired but one last stop: the Whitefish Dunes State Park. Dead Whitefish lined the shore, eyes rotted out, gills gaping - just the memorable photo op I’d been seeking. What sticks in my memory now: the carpet of white seagulls dining along the tall rocks and rushes. Lifting en masse as we neared, they squawked, fluttered, then settled back down to earth, claiming the rocky shoreline as their own.

Exhausted and satisfied, we jostled our tribe back to the lovely Bay Shore Inn in Sturgeon Bay. Grandpa cast stones into the sunset-tinged water, Daughter nestled into her own spot on the all-seashell beach, while Son created Rock-Man, a mosaic sculpture, from flat, wave washed stones. I’ll remember the surf bubbling up on the rocks, each nook and bend of the shoreline beckoning me to claim it as my own for just that one moment.