Door County

8/11/08

The wind finally let up today and we headed home to Door County in Wisconsin. It is a 67 mile trip. The wind and seas were calm so we had a nice ride home. It was great to be able to wait for the nice weather. We tied up at Center Point Marina in Sturgeon Bay. It is between the bridges on the north side where Peterson Builders used to be. The place is very different I am sure compared to when my Dad used to work there. Anyway, the marina is beautiful and just a few years old. It was one of the nicest we have been at in a long time. Good to be back in Wisconsin.

8/13/08

We left Sturgeon Bay and headed up to Horseshoe Island at Peninsula Park to anchor out overnight. On the way we needed to pump out the holding tank. First of all they, the marina staff, were going to do it at Center Point when we were not there which is ok. However they never completed it because the attendant was trying to pump out the water tank instead. EEUW! So we went across the way to Bay Marine and their pump out was plugged so we tried to quickly work on it to make it in time for the bridge which only opens every two hours because of the construction. Luckily we got it all done with about 2 minutes to spare. It would not have been fun anchoring with a full holding tank.

Here is a little update on the bridges. The first one coming in from the lake is Bay View and that is not changing. The one downtown is the Michigan Street Bridge. It is very old and rusty and sort of falling apart. So they built a new one right next to it called the Oregon Street Bridge. The new one is supposed to be finished this fall. But instead of taking out the old one they are rehabbing it. That work will be started when the new one opens. Since they are so close together they will be opened at the same time when it is all finished. There are two opinions of course, one that it should be torn down and replaced with another new one. The other people want it to be preserved for the icon that it is. They need two lanes on each bridge so they will both need to be used. This summer the inspectors closed it for safety reasons for a while. There are now police on either end enforcing the weight limit. Only cars allowed. No trailers, trucks etc. A lot of people you talk to in Sturgeon Bay think that it is dumb to keep the old Michigan Street Bridge, but the preservationists won this round. I guess the future will tell who is right. I would have a tendency to say build a new one but on the other hand when you go to places to see preserved buildings etc., you realize the importance of it.

8/14/08

Today we headed from Horseshoe Island to Sister Bay to meet the kids. When we arrived there was Liberte` across the dock. Timm & Kris arrived that evening and we went out to dinner and had a great time catching up.

8/17/08

Our son Erik and family, Deanna, Will and Jonah joined us for a couple of days. Now we know we are home. It was great fun to go back to the park and be able to sail around with the kids in our home waters. We were able to anchor in the park. One of the fun things we did was to rent double kayaks and paddle around. They have a little seat to put a kid in the middle so we each took one and off we went. The boys really liked it. Otherwise we did the usual going for ice cream, anchoring and hiking at Horseshoe, dinghy rides. It is always high adventure for the little guys. They headed home tonight.

8/18/08

We headed out of Sister Bay and on to Fish Creek to meet another batch of kids, daughters Jenny and Carolyn and their families. They were on the beach at the park so we stopped and anchored for a couple of hours. To me this was also sort of a symbolic moment of being home. They were waiting on the beach waving and ready with hugs.  We were anchored so we took the dinghy to shore. Since it is shallow pretty far out you need to walk a ways to get to shore. We were walking and walking through water with our bags held high to get home to our children and we finally came ashore. Anyway, I am usually not that emotional about that stuff but it was a nice moment for me. The other nice thing about this time is that since I am from this area I got to see all my brothers and sister and mom. We had lots of visiting and partying going on. After the beach stop we continued on to Fish Creek (Alibi Dock) which is another excellent marina. We were expecting a major wind switch which occurred on the way. South wind changed to no wind to strong, cold, north wind. Once we were securely tied up we watched two grandchildren and then went to a large family gathering.

8/20/08

We departed Fish Creek headed back to Sturgeon Bay for the night. We tied up at the Stone Harbor Docks which are not great. No facilities other than bathrooms.

I went out to the family compound to get some fresh veggies and visit for a while. It was a quiet day on Green Bay and very pleasant.