Weekend in Door County

For my birthday, my request was a local, family weekend get away. We decided to drive over to Door County, Wisconsin, off of Lake Michigan. We left when I got off work on Thursday, and stayed the first night in Green Bay- where we actually had one of our best times, just swimming in the hotel pool. Below I'm putting some of our favorite Door County Highlights.

 Bicycling around Peninsula State Park was very cool. When we come back in the future we definitely would want to plan early enough to be able to camp here. We could have spent several days here at the beaches, watching the outdoor theatre, playing on playgrounds.

 Fish Boil

 We went un to Ephraim for dinner. Door County is famous for it's fish boils. Whole potatoes, onions and white fish are boiled in salt water. 92 people were fed at once from that kettle.

 As we waited for our turn to be served we went and threw rocks into the water. Owen's throws don't always go forwards- thus the fear on my face.

 Finally it was our turn to eat. Someone deboned our fish for us, and we ate what was surprisingly, an incredibly delicious meal. (You can see James opted for the hotdog- though he ended up liking the fish so much he ate half of mine.)

 It came complete with a slice of cherry pie. That worked out well, because cherry 'something' was high on our list. Door county is one of the top cherry producers in the nation.

 

That night we camped at Fish Creek campground. It helped us decided that on our bicycling trip next month, we should stay in hotels. The boys loved camping, but was exhausting for us. Setting up the tent, isn't just setting up the tent. It's putting up a few poles, asking James to stop helping so much, running after Owen in the road, asking James to not walk on the tent, pulling Owen off the picnic table, asking James to bring back the poles, picking up Owen and comforting him after a face plant off of the picnic table... You get the idea. Hotels confine a child nicely. Maybe we'll be occasional car campers for the next few years. It's been hard for us to make the adjustment to refocusing our lives to be easy with small kids, but we're getting there.

 

 Next day lunch stop was going to be Al Johnson's Swedish restaurant. We came and watched the goats grazing on the roof (hard to see in the photo) and enjoyed the Scandinavian vibe, but then decided that there are only so many meals in a day, and we still needed to go to PC Junction.

 All we had read about PC Junction was that it was great for kids, and that they serve your food on a train. With our new goal of making our travel more child oriented, we thought we should give it a try. It ended up being one of the most memorable parts of our trip. While we waited for our turn to eat, we drove pedal carts thru tree mazes, looked at giant pigs, slid on unique slides. It reminded me a little of the City Museum in St Louis. Really cool and unusual- at times bordering of creepy. But mostly awesome.

Country Store ice cream

 

Of course we couldn't leave Door County without ice cream. We watched them milk the cows and pet farm animals as we munched.

 

Here's just another rock throwing stop. The water was so clear an beautiful.

 

 We stayed our last night in Sturgeon Bay. On our way out of town we stopped by the free history museum and as you can guess, had a hard time leaving.

 

 Over all we had just a great trip, and loved spending time together as a family.