May 18, 2022-All Around Lake Michigan and Beyond

(click for today's pictures)

Since Door County had been on my list for a while, we felt like we had needed to see every inch of it. We quickly did learn that this county is almost 2500 square miles, so we couldn't see it all. However, we sure did see a good bit of it.

We didn't rush around this morning and had a leisurely breakfast. Now, we had food to cook outside today, but since it was pretty chilly last night, we just had breakfast inside. Graham and I did have a fancy breakfast of some sorts-we heated our bagels in the air fryer. Campbell also made cinnamon toast in the air fryer. We don't have a toaster in the camper, but the air fryer is my new best friend. We also used it tonight to bake our mac and cheese.

Anyway, after breakfast we soon drove about 15 minutes to Ellison Bluff County Park. The drive there was beautiful. The park had an overlook overlooking Green Bay (not the city, the real bay). We walked around there for a little bit, and then back to the car.

On the way to the park, we saw rows and rows of beautiful cherry trees which were in full (or almost) full blossom. Door County, Wisconsin is known for their cherry trees-if we had come a few weeks later, we would have been able to pick cherries here. However, we did stop to take a few pictures of those cherry trees.

Next up was the Seaquist Orchards market. There were tons of these shops all along with roads that we drove today. Now, Robby and I could have stopped at every single one-probably buying something at all of them. However, the kids wouldn't have been too crazy about this.

This one did have a huge playground which the kids hung out at while we ran in the store. By the time that we left, we only had bought a bag of ice, a sticker for the camper, a slice of apple pie for Graham, and a slice of 3 berry pie for Reagan. 

Reagan is currently loving cherries and wants us to buy them, but we haven't yet because they have been frightfully expensive. I did offer her up some dried cherries today, but she opted for pie instead. And I thought there would have been some discussion with Graham leaving the place with apple pie, but apparently Reagan and Graham are my only pie eaters.

I had made a list of  a few things to see while we were here. One of them was Al Johnson's restaurant. It is a Swedish restaurant with real live goats hanging out on the grassy roof. (And by the way, people pronounce roof up here as "ruff.") Anyway, we had driven by this place yesterday, but I was quick to notice the goats today. That was a fun little stop.

The next and best stop of the day was Cave Point County Park which is also the only known county park inside of a city park. This was on the Michigan Lake side. It had amazing bluffs that were so beautiful. Now, what was not so beautiful was the little black flies. They were everywhere-swarms of them. It was kind of scary.

These flies unnerved Reagan so much that she went back to the car. Keaton eventually joined her, and then Campbell followed suit while waving her arms around her head. We dealt with those bugs off and on at all of our other stops for the day. 

The water at this park was incredibly clear. It made you just want to go swimming in it. However, Campbell touched it and said that it was incredibly cold. If Campbell says something is cold-it is cold! 

Then we found ourselves a Walmart. Robby left the house with out his comfy pants and a belt. He could have survived without his pants, but the belt was a necessity. Thankfully, Walmarts are indeed everywhere. We just ran in and then ran out of the store-the credit card company was probably confused since we didn't spend a hundred dollars in the Walmart like usual.

I had packed snacks in the car that we had been munching on, but by this time of the day, we needed some lunch. We stopped at McDonalds for a bite of lunch. I had the new chicken sandwich. I was certainly unimpressed. I do like ChickFIlA but have become tried it of lately. I thought this might be good-it wasn't. When we do our chicken sandwich taste test that we have talked about doing, the McDonalds one will not be on the list.

Our last big stop of the day was Peninsula State Park. This place was massive. There were like 500 camping spots. We drove by their dump station-most parks have 1-3, they had about 10. However, this park hugged the Green Bay side of the peninsula and was itself kind of a peninsula on this peninsula. 

The flies were out at Eagle Bluff Lighthouse which we looked at for a bit. Then we drove on towards Eagle Tower, a huge overlook. It used to be a fire tower which was redone in 2021. It was 100 steps to the top and provided a beautiful overlook of Green Bay-253 feet above it. It was a cool stop-

The park charged us 13 dollars to enter the park, but this tower and attraction would have easily cost 8 or more a person at other places. We really enjoyed this little walk. Now, there was a 2 mile trail right near by, but those silly bugs!

We then headed back to the campsite. Robby picked up the key to the laundry room for us to do laundry. We did two loads tonight and it is super good to be all caught up with that. While laundry was happening, I heated up our bbq for supper. We also had that mac and cheese that we bought yesterday. That mac and cheese was made with 2 year old cheddar cheese. It was delicious-though when I teased Whitman that it had blue cheese in it, he was done.

After supper was finished and cleaned up, the laundry was folded and put away, and most things unhooked for our early departure tomorrow, we loaded back up to go and get some ice cream. Door County Ice Cream Factory was just about 2 miles away from us-it was wonderful. I don't remember what kind of ice cream that Robby bought for us-but it had more chocolate pieces in it than ice cream. I really could have eaten another scoop or two. Wonder if they will be open tomorrow when we drive by?

Then it was back to the camper to straighten up and do a bit of school work. Right now, it is almost 10 and everyone is super quiet in their beds. They are all on their devices, but I think that folks are tired!

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