Crazy Autumn/Respite in Door County

It's been a crazy autumn around here. I've loved it, but am eagerly anticipating a little bit of a slowdown after the holidays! At least I've got my Christmas shopping done. If I don't get it done by Halloween, I have failed. My dislike of being trapped in the Madison crowds and getting folded, spindled and mutilated at every turn, prevents me from enjoying 'holiday' shopping in the traditional sense.  Thankfully the stores have their Christmas stuff out in August now so I can get a jump on it!

Work has been nuts, but I was able to get a couple of days to go up to Door County to see Northern Sky's production of 'Muskie Love'. Friend, Doug Mancheski, was in it. Someone told me that since I love 'Guys on Ice' so much, that I needed to see 'Lumberjacks in Love' (which I did two summers ago) and 'Muskie Love'. The perfect trilogy! 'Muskie Love's basic bones structure kind of lies in  Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing' ..but as a musical comedy....set in a fishing village.... in Door County, Wisconsin... and the Packers are kind of in it. There is a character named DNR Doug that was hilarious! I loved the music and hope they put a CD out. Doug sang a song by Dave Hudson called 'On Green Bay' that was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes! What a voice and what a poignant song!

Stayed overnight in Fish Creek, since the play was at the Door County auditorium, had breakfast at Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant (goats on the roof doncha know) in Sister Bay, and then did the fall foliage drive back by Northern Sky's soon-to-be new home before crossing over to the other side of the peninsula and going to Bailey's Harbor. My plan was to go to Whitefish Dunes State Park and fossil hunt on the beach. Great plan, except there was no beach! The water was so high and the winds so wild that the water was coming right up to the trees and the beach was closed. Instead, I walked up the shore the other way to Cave Point where things were really rocking and rolling!

I met a bunch of nice folks at the point and took pictures for a bunch of people with their cameras and cell phones. For some of them I'd take a picture of myself first. I like to think of them back home  in Chicago, going through their vacation pics and wondering who the heck that lady is! I walked the path through the woods, along the cliffs, which are 2-3 stories above the water, and still got hefty doses of sea spray, although it was worth it to hear the water sing in the caves in the limestone cliffs-like Thunder Hole in Acadia x10!  It was only 40° so I was glad to get back to the warmth of the car after an hour and a half outside although the walk totally restores the soul.

From there, I drove down to Algoma where  there was a beach I could walk to look for rocks.

 I'm glad it was a long beach because one half of it definitely belonged to these guys:

And I didn't want to have to sift though all their poo for the good rocks. Better to just stick to my end of the shore! There was a beautiful lighthouse at the goose end too!

Manitowoc and Two Rivers have a bike path/park that run down the entire length of the shoreline with placed to sit and watch the lake. It's absolutely gorgeous, no matter what the weather.

I went by it on the way up to Fish Creek and had wanted to stop on the way home, but after 90 minutes at Cave Point and another two hours at Algoma, I was cold and done in  and still had about a 3 hour drive to get home so I just went back through Green Bay. I am relieved to tell you that I actually made it back over the scary, tall bridges in Green Bay. They are knuckle-tightening on a calm day and the winds were really whipping making them extra exciting! I may or may not have said a few swear words in amongst my prayers! I didn't invent any new swears, but I t strung the existing ones together pretty creatively while traversing a swinging concrete slab way up in the sky!

I had a wonderful time. The play was awesome. Visiting with Doug is always a pleasure and I got a little taste of the coast of Maine right here in the Midwest. I found lots of fossils, made new friends and didn't catch my death of pneumonia out traipsing around in the wind and rain. Can't ask for more than that!