In late July our son Ward came for a brief visit. It was great to see him and he enjoyed getting out of Chicago for a few days.
While Ward was with us, we returned to Peninsula State Park and climbed again to the top of the tall wooden tower overlooking Green Bay. It is a great view but, knowing the tower was built in the 1930's, I was not too thrilled with the swaying of the tower in wind.
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| From 7-08 Door Peninsula, WI |
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| From 7-08 Door Peninsula, WI |
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| From 7-08 Door Peninsula, WI |
We also took a ferry ride over to Washington Island off the North End of the Peninsula. The ride over was beautiful, and we enjoyed talking to one of the residents on his way back home. It was especially interesting to hear about travels across the waterway in the winter when the water freezes over. At one time, people drove across the ice, but this stopped the year the local high school basketball team was lost when their vehicle broke through the ice. They had apparently drifted off the designated safe route. What a sad story. Now, the ferry company has an ice breaking ferry that makes the trip. You just have to be sure to schedule a place since it is a smaller boat than the two that run in the summer.
The island looked much like the Door Peninsula - very lovely. We made two or three stops as we drove around the island. The most interesting was to the STAVKIRKE. This is a copy of the type churches built in Scandinavian countries in medieval times. While thousands were built, only a few remain in Norway and one in Sweden. The local Lutheran Church built the STAVKIRKE as a tribute to their Norwegian and Icelandic heritage. STAVKIRKE means "stave church". The word "stave" comes from the old Norse word "stafv" which is the word for load bearing posts. So this is a wooden church with a post and beam construction. It has a pagoda style roof made with wooden shingles. Among the unusual features are the carved dragons at the end of the gables. These dragons are much more visible than the ones in the Borklunden chapel we referenced in a previous post about Door County. Another interesting aspect is a model of a ship hanging in the middle of the church. This is again a feature of the ancient Norse churches. It was a symbol of their close ties to the sea, or in this case to the Great Lakes. Also hanging in the ceiling of the foyer of the church is a carpenter's pouch. One of the key carpenters on the project left it hanging there the day they finished the church. He died unexpectedly that night, and the church has left it as a fitting tribute to him.
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| From 7-08 Door Peninsula, WI |
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| From 7-08 Door Peninsula, WI |
We also climbed another tower while on the Island. We had another great view looking across the island to Lake Michigan. Our final stop was a small fishing harbor and village at the north end of the island.
We all left Door County a few days later. Ward of course headed back to Chicago. We traveled further north in Wisconsin. We stopped along the way to have slide out trays installed in two of our underneath storage bays. We had ordered them at the Newmar Rally. Instead of having them shipped to us for self install, we elected to stop by the factory since it was right on our way to our next destination in Eagle River, Wisconsin. This was less expensive than the shipping charges and saved me a lot of work. The trays are very nice making it a lot easier to access some of our items stored underneath.
We stayed in Eagle River for a week. This is called the North Woods region and that is an apt name. On our drive up, the landscape changed from rolling pastures and farmland to dense woods. The Eagle River area is mainly woods with many many lakes. You can take a boat and connect through a chain of 28 lakes by way of the river. So the main recreation is boating and hunting and of course all the winter sports of cross country skiing and snowmobile riding and racing. You know you are in the far north when instead of a dirt track for car racing they have a similar track for snowmobile racing. They claim the world championships are held here each year. We do not plan to come back to see them. That will be way to cold for us!
We did not do much touring while in Eagle River, but did enjoy our time at the Hi Pines Campground. One thing we did enjoy was a couple of visits to "Soda Pops". This diner is in an old restored soda parlor. They had a hundred or more varieties of sodas. They seem to have available just about every soft drink made in America. All the drink bottles are on display around the walls. It reminded me of my bottle collection. They even had Blenheim Ginger Ale from South Carolina. They also had Hank's Root Beer. I almost bought one just to have the bottle to send to my friend Hank Fisher from BellSouth.
We left Eagle River heading further north to Houghton, Michigan on the Keweenaw Peninsula of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan - the UP.
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