Because my campground - Potowatomi State Park - is so close to my previous campground, and because there was a forecast for serious rain in the next few days, I decided to travel around the peninsula the same day I was changing campgrounds. Turned out to be a good idea.
Route map
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| route for Sunday the 25th, starting from the far bottom left and heading to the top right |
Campground
* Potowatomi State Park - As with all Wisconsin state parks, this one is heavily wooded, well cared for, with large campsites. None of them has water at the site, though about half of the sites do have electricity. And again, no wifi either with their signal or with my hotspot. So I spent 3 peaceful days there, but frustrating too because it's not that easy for me to work on posts when I can't see how they'll fit in to the blog, and when I can't add photos with the expectation that they'll transfer over. And even there I ended up with neighbors who didn't believe in telling their dogs to stop barking. And I did indeed get heavily rained on. But the campsite and roads drained well, and I still had a pleasant stay.
Comments along the road
I passed the Belgian Heritage Center near the village of Brussels, which I guess makes sense.
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| I saw this at a wayside area |
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| full view of well site |
This was at a rest area, where my dogs were made much of by a woman in her 60s and her daughter. The daughter had no boundaries at all, which is a phrase I've never understood until now, and she only heard about a quarter of anything I said. I was explaining to them how I ended up living in the RV, saying after my momma died I'd have been homeless, and this seemed a reasonable alternative. The daughter jumped in and said, You're homeless? So I went on to explain about my month-per-state traveling plan, which the mom was envious of and the daughter didn't listen to, and the daughter asked if I'd come stay with them for a few days.
I thought she just wanted more info on my travels, which seemed weird enough, but then she said, I'm sure we can have you back on your feet in no time. I've lived under bridges myself and you don't need to worry." It took me a minute to realize she was fixated on my "homeless" remark and wanted to make me a project. I could barely get away from her, though her mom, who was a hospice nurse, appeared to have a better grip on reality. But it was a very weird incident. Just showing campgrounds aren't the only places where I can meet loony people.
Sturgeon Bay (the city) is the largest town in Door County with 9,000+ residents; it sits on Sturgeon Bay (the body of water) and seems a lovely place. Several bridges across the bay, many marinas for the many boats. In fact, Sturgeon Bay is known as a shipbuilding center and I passed plenty of evidence showing that's still quite an active enterprise.
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| right side of the same view |
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| left side of the view coming into Little Harbor |
Little Harbor is the name of the harbor as well as the village, just out of sight of that right-hand photo. As picturesque as the harbor. I passed a place called the Little Harbor Inn, just above the water on the water side of the road. It looked so pleasant and relaxing I was tempted to just stop right there and spend a few days.
The slightly larger town of Egg Harbor has a population of 801. This is not an overpopulated part of the country, though I imagine if you live here, you think it's populated enough. I talked with a woman who said she'd lived here all her life and loved it. Said her daughter had recently moved back here with her husband and children and bought the very successful store the woman was working in. At the end she added, "Hard winters, though."
Cherry orchards up here, with "pick your own" signs.
The Edgewater Cottages at Sister Bay (both a town (pop. 876) and a body of water) also looked a very comfortable place to stay. It would be a very pleasant vacation to fly into Milwaukee (only a few hours away by car), rent a car and drive up here to spend a week or two sitting around one of these small motels or B&Bs staring at the water, maybe taking a water tour or renting a boat or driving around to these tiny towns with their crafts and antiques and produce shops. For myself I think I'd come in the early fall, after the majority of the tourists have left and when the trees are starting to change.
Everybody's right on this one: it's truly gorgeous up here. Very pleasant, very comfortable, very relaxed.
I passed the village of Ephraim (pop. 288), that has a yacht club. Also a Sled Dog Discovery Center, which I'd think said something about their winters, except I found online that there's one in Juneau, Alaska, and after spending 15 years there I can say that's one of the last places I'd expect to see sled dogs (plenty of snow, no place to sled on), so maybe this is a tourist thing. Anyway, it's there.
At the end of Door County peninsula is a ferry terminal, where you can go over to Washington Island.In my photo, you can see the end of the ferry dock on the far right, the breakwater, and beyond that Plum Island, while very far back is Washington Island.
Washington Island has a year-round community of about 700 and a lot of summer tourism - there are multiple ferry trips daily.
The road at the ferry terminal is called Porte des Mortes Drive, which I gradually translated to myself as Death's Door - not encouraging so much better to be in French (which I never took and relied on the Latin I did take to translate). That body of water is Lake Michigan. Pretty lake, huh?
On the way back to the campground, I passed yet another marker for the 45th Parallel, but this one was more erudite than they usually are, so I took this photo.
It did pour down rain the next day, as forecast, and I found out later it rained more than 2". The good part about that for me is that nobody in the campground wanted to walk their dogs any farther than they had to, so I could walk mine with far fewer worries than when it's sunny. Perverse sort of life I'm leading - but it should be better in a few weeks when camping season winds down.
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