After a week here in Door County, Wisconsin, it’s time to head to the next stop and one day closer to the solar eclipse around which this entire road-trip has been built!

Uncle Mike left us today and headed home to Chicago. He certainly left a big impression on Miss Poppy who was sitting on his lap almost immediately after first introductions (not how she has been raised)! Seriously, it was fun to see the two of them together especially when we were out walking in the forest and Uncle Mike was being pulled along on his first squirrel hunting mission!

We head out on our farewell tour starting with lunch at Wilson’s Sundae parlor in Ephraim which opened in 1906 solely selling ice creams and sundaes. It now offers a lunch menu and is immaculately kept with small booths for four people, art deco styled lights, a working jukebox and, of course, ice creams!

Onwards to Gills Rock where you can catch a ferry to Washington Island located about seven miles northeast of the tip of Door Peninsula. The island’s economy is based on tourism which supports a population of around 700 people.

Mike and I are truly enamored with the beauty of Door County, the relaxed environment and the summer weather – no humidity, few bugs, enjoyable temperatures and individually managed and owned shops and restaurants. We love the Birch trees that populate the forests, and the Black-eyed Susan perennials that adorn most Door County gardens.

Our conversation has veered towards buying a property and we have even taken a sneaky, roadside look at some homes! I think what really gets us is the winter and neither of us understand how you would live in a predominantly summer vacation area during four months of dark snow-bound days!

Black-eyed Susan plants bring a flash of colour to gardens in Door County.

Peninsular State Park covers over 3,500 acres including eight miles of Green Bay shoreline in Fish Creek, Wisconsin where an estimated one million visitors annually enjoy the park’s extensive camp grounds, scenic trails and beautiful views and sunsets.

On the edge of the park is the “Not Yet Licked Frozen Custard” parlor where you can buy a sweet treat and sit by the water and watch ducks do their wonderful and crazy stuff. A note here to my English friends, frozen custard is not want you think! It is not some weird take on Bird’s Eye custard as we know it, but a form of ice cream like Mr. Whippy!

For years and years, I believed that frozen custard was a strange American treat that only being born in the USA you could appreciate, like iced-tea and peanut and jelly sandwiches! How wrong could I be and how many years of ice-cream eating did I miss!

We also bought bags of duck food (which turned out to be popcorn) to get our feathered friends to perform! And boy, did we four grown-ups have fun feeding the ducks!

Such simple pleasures in life – feeding the ducks!

Poppy and I are now dealing with three Mikes in the motor home. Treble the trouble! Boys, beers and setting things on fire, and they are in heaven!

From left: Stepson Chris (he is now known as Mike), Mike Neary (we call him Uncle Mike), Miss Poppy and Mike enjoying the sunshine (and the beer) at the newly opened Door County craft brewery in Bailey’s Harbor, Wisconsin. We met the owner who looks like one of the ZZ top band members and who went to the same university where Chris is at school.

Uncle Mike making some kindling for the fire. The Mikes were at high school together and have been close friends ever since. Uncle Mike is one of our travel companions and has been all over the world with us. He is with us for a couple of days before heading home to Chicago.

Father and son discussing the finer things in life! Here at the RV camp each site has its own picnic table and fire pit. You buy the fire wood from the camp’s store and it is a popular evening event to get a fire going and sit and enjoy it!

Egg Harbor is a delightful village in Door County, Wisconsin.  Population 201!

The village has an eclectic range of shops and restaurants all of which are individually owned and managed which makes such a welcome treat from living in Texas where everything is part of a chain and many of the chains are similar!

Here there is the Pink Bakery, specializing is baked goods – cheesecakes, cupcakes, artisan breads and cappuccinos; a Made in Britain shop – yes, you guessed it, selling everything from Walkers Shortbread, English Mustard, an array of “Keep Calm” merchandise and Cadbury chocolates; Fat Louie olive oil and wine shop; Grumpy’s ice-cream parlour; a few art galleries; a couple of boutiques and some antique shops and that’s about it. You have now toured the high street of Egg Harbor!

On the way out-of-town is an Orchards Market selling everything you could conceivably think of that can be made from or include cherries! An array of Wisconsin’s finest Cherry Cheddars, cherry donuts, cherry jams, preserves, salsas, cherry pie, ice-cream, jars of whole cherries, chopped cherries, blackcherry chipotle dip, cherry BBQ sauce and so much more! These Wisconsites will put cherries in just about anything they can find!

Pretty Egg Harbor marina. We have had storms for the last two days but it’s due to be sunny today!

Locally made wind chimes adorn the park overlooking the harbour.

In Door County, cherry orchards line the road sides almost like wallpaper. Limbs bend under the weight of the beautiful red fruit that’s visible from the car.

The county’s temperate climate and the unlikelihood of late frosts due to the lake effect from Green Bay and Lake Michigan, has led to the growth of the cherry industry. The cherry trees thrive in the shallow soil which is only a few feet deep and which sits on top of bedrock providing natural drainage and inhibiting the effect of root rot.

Early growers experimented with different cherry varieties and found the greatest success with the tart Montmorency variety. Today, approximately seven million pounds of cherries are produced annually!

Cherry Fun Facts:

• The world record for spitting a cherry pit is 93 feet, 6 1⁄2 inches set by Brian Krause at the International Cherry Pit-Spitting Championship in Michigan in 2004!
• Cherry trees are a member of the rose family.
• They may help relieve the pain of gout by lowering uric acid thereby reducing inflammation.
• One serving of frozen tart cherries provides 25 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A.
• Tart cherries contain melatonin, a hormone secreted by the brain that regulates the sleep cycle.

Gone are the days when 12-15,000 hand pickers would migrate to Door County for the harvest. Today, a mechanical harvester shakes 7,000 cherries off an average tree in about seven seconds and can shake 60-100 trees an hour! Shaking a tree shortens the average lifespan by about 15 years, but new trees are continually planted to keep production at peak levels.

In the fall of 1848, Captain Justice Bailey discovered the harbor that was to bear his name as he searched for a safe mooring during a violent storm on Lake Michigan. The storm was so severe that he risked entering an uncharted harbor but luckily, he found it to be of sufficient depth. He remained overnight, and decided to explore the next day where he found an abundance of limestone and timber, and he took back samples to his employer, Milwaukee businessman, Alanson Sweet. Mr. Sweet envisioned great business opportunities for the new area and sent a crew of men to harvest timber and stone and build a pier. They also began to carve a road to the other side of the peninsula that is known today as County Road F.

Some twelve million people live along Lake Michigan’s shores, mainly in the Chicago and Milwaukee metropolitan areas. The economy of many communities in northern Michigan and Door County, Wisconsin is supported by tourism, with large seasonal populations attracted by the beauty and recreational opportunities offered by Lake Michigan. Seasonal residents often have summer homes along the waterfront and return home for the winter.

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the US – the other four Great Lakes are shared by the US and Canada. 

The word “Michigan” originally referred to the lake itself, and is believed to have come from the Ojibwa tribe word “mishigami” meaning Great Water.

We are now in Door County which is located on a peninsular in Wisconsin with Green Bay on one side and Lake Michigan on the other. It is one of our favourite destinations in the US, and a place we have visited many times. It also happens to be one of the nation’s premier vacation destinations. With 250 miles of shoreline, five state parks and 10 lighthouses, it boasts more of each of these than any other county in the country.

Within Door County, there are several different towns each with their own distinct character. Our favourite is a place called Fish Creek, a small, very pretty town with its own harbour where they are moored some seriously gorgeous boats. A few years ago, we became so enamoured with Fish Creek that we met with a realtor and looked at some properties in the area. Pictured below is the apartment which we originally viewed which was in a great location but it had a somewhat quirky inside including an elevator – for three floors!

There is Egg Harbor, where our RV park is located. It is a small, quaint town which we have only visited once before, until now, and which we will explore further tomorrow.

And, Bailey’s Harbor, which is a keen favourite of ours with the Cornerstone Pub and Restaurant being of particular interest and a location where we have spent many an idle hour! Here you can gorge on pan-fried Perch or deep-fried Walleye, two of the local catches which are wonderful. I seem to remember, but I will need to check, that at one time long, long before this place was a pub, that it was a funeral home! I don’t think that I’m making this up, it is just something sufficiently quirky to stick in my grey cells! No doubt we will visit soon and I will need to re-read the newspaper cuttings on the wall!

We looked at the far right apartment in this block in Fish Creek which overlooks the harbour where some rather large boats are moored.

Construction of the present Wisconsin state capitol, the third in Madison, began in late 1906 and was completed in 1917 at a cost of $7.25 million. As there was an immediate need to house state government employees, the construction of the new building was extended over several years and emphasized building one wing at a time.

The building was constructed of 43 types of stone from six countries and eight states. The exterior stone is Bethel white granite from Vermont, making the exterior dome, I believe, the largest granite dome in the world!

From 1988 to 2002 the capitol underwent a major renovation and restoration project costing $158.8 million. The project was performed wing by wing, the same as the original construction of the capitol, with the aim of converting the capitol into a modern working building, while restoring and preserving its original 1917 appearance.

Remodeling projects of the 1960s and ‘70s had introduced features out of character with the architecture of the building, such as dropped ceilings, movable partitions and fluorescent light fixtures, and many original decorative stencils were painted over. The restoration project returned public spaces to their original appearance. Original decorative stencils were repaired or recreated; gold leaf was replaced or restored, and the exterior granite was cleaned and repaired by workers who rappelled down from the dome. The renovation plan also included integrating modern technology into the original architecture – electrical, mechanical (such as plumbing and heating), and communications systems were upgraded; asbestos was removed, and air conditioning was added.

The inside of the capitol is as magnificent as the outside as Mike and I enjoyed first-hand as we wandered through its corridors. The floors, walls and columns are constructed of American marble, granite and limestone. I am unsure where the interior lights are from, but they are stunning and the facials of the elevators mirror something from an art deco museum!

Madison sits on an isthmus between lakes Mendota and Monona. The city is home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an establishment with a 2016 enrollment of over 43,000 students attending facilities covering almost 1,000 acres across the city.

With two main lakes and a large population of young people, it is only natural that the city exudes an outdoor style of life which is good for a large part of the year and the remainder of the calendar, the state’s inhabitants are digging out snow!

Sitting between two lakes, you can see from the architecture that the city has morphed from a water dependent, industrial producer to a trendy, hip-hop, craft brew, farm-to-table, happening kind of city. There is a really good network of cycling lanes which are multi-tasking as running and dog-walking trails!

The lakes are simply gorgeous and we take the opportunity to give Poppy some much needed fresh air and new smells by walking her around part of lake Monona. Folks are out in kayaks, speed boats, cycling, running, and dog-walking! An initial comment I would have for Madison is that if you don’t’ have a dog then likely you should borrow one to ensure you don’t feel like an outsider!

We stop for lunch at the Next Door brewing company where Poppy just can’t help herself and order an appetizer of deep-fried cheese curds using one of their beers for the batter, served with a home-made ranch dressing! Oh boy, gorgeous!

After lunch, we head to the Wisconsin Brewing Company where Pat McCurdy is performing. Candid moment: I have never heard of Pat McCurdy and didn’t know any of the songs he was performing!

The brewing company sits within a business park, where there is a lovely lake and landscaped gardens with outdoor seating. It is packed to the gills with folks, families and dogs of every kind you can imagine. Seriously, I have never seen so many dogs in my life!

Poppy ready to enjoy her deep-fried cheese curds!

A former industrial plant over-looking Lake Menona being converted into something more fitting for modern-day Madison.

We drove into Madison today, Wisconsin’s state capitol, and visited the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. Wow, what a wonderful and most unexpected visit …. the gardens are spectacular!

Within the Botanical Gardens is a beautiful pavilion which was a gift from the Thai Government and is only one of four located outside of Thailand. The gift was approved by Thailand’s royal family and the pavilion bears the Royal seal of the Thai Crown.

The pavilion was originally built in Thailand, then disassembled and packed in shipping crates which traveled seven weeks by sea to the US, then by rail to Chicago, and finally to Madison by truck. Nine Thai artisans traveled to Madison and spent three weeks re-assembling the structure.

Amazingly, the pavilion can withstand the winter weather of Wisconsin with no protection because it is constructed of plantation-grown teak and weather-resistant ceramic roof tiles. The pavilion features gold leaf etchings, a lacquer finish, and intricate decoration, however, the gold leaf is unable to withstand the oils from the human hand and so you are no longer able to touch it.

The Thai Garden surrounding the Pavilion emulates a lush, tropical garden with Wisconsin-hardy plants. Ornamental grasses, some reaching up to 12 feet tall, and several hardy bamboos are essential in creating a tropical look. Large-leafed shrubs and trees are pruned to give them the look of plants in a typical Thai garden.

The pavilion is crafted without nails or screws.

The Thai Garden is connected to the central gardens by a 155-foot arched, ornamental bridge that spans Starkweather Creek which leads into Lake Mendota.