Our Door County Weekend [Photos]

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Kris

A little out of order, as these were from before Halloween, but our family ended the month of October with our final road trip of 2011.

Last weekend, we made another trip up to Door County, and had some absolutely beautiful weather. Much better than our October trip in 2009, that’s for sure.

And while we were able to enjoy the weather outside, we took advantage of the remaining fall colors to snap a few photos.

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Was such an amazing time. Right now, we’re thinking our next Door County trip will be in early February, but obviously there’s a lot to do until then.

We hope you enjoy these photos.

– Kris

Cherry Hut

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Kris

Mama and Christian in front of Cherry Hut sign

Rainy Day in Green Bay

Well, when we awoke Friday morning and the weather wasn’t planning to cooperate for our outdoor activities, we fired up Google Maps and drew up a drive down to Green Bay for the afternoon. The weather in “Titletown” wasn’t much better, but at least we could spend some time shopping indoors instead of getting soaked.

For dinner, it was our Door County mainstay – pizza and gelato at Joe Jo’s. And boy, did it hit the spot. Other than Nikki’s Pizza in the food court in Whalers Village (that’s Maui, for those playing along at home), we haven’t found a better pizza that we could both polish off together. Mmmmm, I’m hungry just right about it.

North and Back

With the rain gone for Saturday, we were back on the road driving up the western side of the peninsula. We started with some shopping in Sturgeon Bay, followed by a relaxing drive up County Rd B (in lieu of Hwy 42). We hit the Main Street Market in Egg Harbor, and stopped in Sister Bay for lunch. First Christian ate a little cereal (video coming soon) and then Mama and Papa dined at Al Johnson’s. No goats this time, they were still at the farm after some roof repair.

Since we were that far north already, we went all the way to Northport. A fun drive as always, but Christian slept right through it. His first winding road car ride will have to come some other time.

On the way back, we made one last stop at the Cherry Hut between Fish Creek and Egg Harbor. That’s where the photo above was taken. And regarding the photo, a new rule is that Mama can’t wear hooded sweatshirts with strings in them. She agreed, with the condition that we stop going to places that are cold enough to require sweatshirts. Details.

Heading Home

Sunday means it’s time to head home, and despite losing the day Friday to rain, it was still a very nice trip. The next visit here will hopefully be met with more accommodating weather conditions and more time to explore the eastern side of the peninsula once again.

Until next time,
– Kris

On Vacation

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Kris

Mama and Christian by the Bay

Getting Started

Although our morning started later than we had hoped on Wednesday, the drive up went pretty well. And unlike our drive to Iowa in April (where we arrived at 11:45pm) we made it with plenty of daylight left.

This shot was taken along the bay shortly after we finished dinner, while it was still about 85 degrees out. The problem was, however, that even though Mama and Papa ate, Christian was starting to get hungry himself. Which lead to the realization of a baby photography rule that I had just read the night before:

Full babies are happy babies.

Needless to say, we weren’t shooting much longer after this one.

12 Hours, 35 Degrees

To make matters worse, the temps up here dropped from about 85 at 8pm Wednesday night to about 50 degrees at 8am on Thursday. And although we had a good amount of sun during the day, we never passed the 65 degree mark. Bummer.

As far as our choice in weekends, the folks back home in Chicago were experiencing the same drop in temps from Wednesday to Thursday, too, so it wasn’t just up here. For some reason, though, that doesn’t seem like a good consolation prize.

Regardless, we’re just happy to get away for a little R&R (as much as you can have with a 6 month old, anyway) to hold us over until we get back to Maui in August.

– Kris

Audio Association

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Kris

Kind of a random post here, but I’m 32,000 feet in the air somewhere above Tennessee or something and listening to my iPod. The current playlist? DJ Shah Songbook.

So what, right? Sounds like a silly thing to post about, doesn’t it?

Actually, there’s a little more to it than that. This particular mix is one that Cindy and I have listened to in the car many times on our road trips up to Door County, WI. So much so, that everytime I listen to it, I can close my eyes and picture myself driving along Hwy 42 along side the water on the coast and cruising between Egg Harbor, Fish Creek, Ephraim, and all the others. Once I start thinking about Door County again, then in brings back all the memories we’ve had up there so far in our handful of visits.

All of that from just from listening to music that no one else on the planet would associate with Northern Wisconsin.

So, what Door County memories are coming up this time? Well, maybe it’s because I’ve been on a business trip all week and a little homesick, but mostly the memories of Cindy and I just driving around aimlessly and finding new places to check out.

Take for example, the our December trip we tool in ’08 when we stayed in Sister Bay and it was like 4*F out during the day. When is wasn’t dumping snow on us, we drove around and found the Whitefish Dunes State Park and some of the hiking trails there. The sky was completely cloudless and gorgeous and the sun was beating down on our faces.

Cindy was bundled up with about a dozen layers and still freezing, but you couldn’t blame here. Even with the sun, it was still only in the single digits – not to mention the wind chill. All the snow there was mostly untouched because we were the first ones there that morning and perhaps one of only a few cars that paid a visit that day.

We did manage to make it down one of the shorter trails until we hit the snow covered beach with wave formations still frozen in the ice. Being a fan of winter, I was in polar bear heaven, although my loving wife would only humor me for a few minutes after that. So I snapped a few shots and we moved on.

More Door

I know, why the heck am I talking about snow and wind and wind chill when it’s only the middle of May. My bad.

One of the common themes that come up when I start thinking about our Door County trips is when are we going back. At this point, now that we expecting and have a few other items planned for the early summer, we don’t really have a next DC trip on the calendar yet. It also makes me think, “Boy, I really need a break from everything.” Nothing new there.

Every once and a while, I take it one step further and think to myself what it we every decided to move up that far north? I know our ultimate goal is to join our kimos over on the Valley Isle, buy with a little one coming, that makes the timing and planning a little more difficult. Plus, the cost of leaving is much cheaper that what we’re used to now in our current neighborhood, let alone Maui.

It’s a fun thought to entertain, if anything else. Could we survive the winters that are worse than what we already have now? What about not having Starbucks around? Which town would we choose? Do they have kick ass high speed Internet access? Okay, that last one was mine.

All this from just sitting on a plane listening to a playlist on my iPod. Funny how my mins works, isn’t it.

Anybody else have similar experiences with certain songs or artists?

Door County 04/16/09- 04/19/09

Posted on April 24, 2009 by Cindy

First off I can’t believe the last time I blogged about something was this very same trip to Door County in December of 2008…… I do apologize for the Cindy, in Kris and Cindy’s blog to have neglected the site……

4/16/09

” First of want to send birthday wishes to Kris,” We’re heading back up to Door County, WI this afternoon for an extended weekend, so I thought I would kick off this mini blog, by saying we’re staying at Edge water Resort, in Ephraim this trip, and although we never stayed there before we’ve driven passed it numerous times…

The town of Ephraim is a picture of classic Door County elegance… While you are staying in Ephraim or driving through, you get a great view of the bay.. Ephraim is a wonderful place to walk along the shoreline, check out the sunset, lady’s if you want to pamper yourself has great spa to go to….Spa at Sacred grounds, it’s minutes from Peninsula state park.. were you could walk, bike.. or enjoy just enjoy the scenery.

So it is a 4 hour drive from Niles IL to Door County… Drive included bright sunshine, nice weather, listening to the cubs game on the radio.. Kris and I made our traditional stop in Sheybogan, where we stopped at the Starbucks, and even Cold Stone Creamery… We continued on with our journey.. We knew we were going to have a late check in, but we didn’t know the lobby closes at 5pm Mon -Thurs.. we arrive at The Edgewater Resort, to find an envelope taped to the lobby door with our last name, on it.. it had our room key and what room we are staying in..

We had a beautiful view overlooking the bay..

Our plan was to get settled in then to go to, Jo Joe’s Pizzeria and gelato bar, for dinner, they have awesome, pizza and awesome gelato, drive up to find it closed.. the owners are on vacation from 4/16-4/22, we were going to go eat at the Old English Inn, but it was to formal, so we ended up at Husby’s bar& grill. After dinner we came back to the room and, believe it or not we were able to watch the Blackhawks game.

4/17/09…

Good morning, from the beautiful Edgewater Resport, where the sun is shining, blue Sky’s, this is were i would say have beautiful view of the bay.. this morning little set back.. work is being done on the resort, aka outside our room so we have a nice view of the trucks and a ladder outside our window….

First thing we did was check in, because we couldn’t check in yesterday.. After we checked in our plan was to go into Fish Creek, stop at this deli, pick up some deli sandwiches, then go Peninsula State park. We drive down there and the deli shop is closed, and will re-open on 4/24Th, we would try this other small deli, place we know, the sign said closed, but turns out they are closed for good.. We ended up at the Main Street Market, to pick up deli sandwiches, then we drove to Peninsula State Park…

Peninsula State Park, was established in 1909, it’s Wisconsin’s most popular camping destination, 8 miles of green bay shoreline, wrap around Northern hardwood forests, wetlands, meadows, and 150ft cliffs.

There were numerous stops, and picture opportunities.. Kris and I climbed 70ft Eagle Tower.. you have great views of the shoreline, and other areas of the park. We stopped and ate lunch at Nicolette Beach. It was a nice day…. nice weather+ nice pictures= able to enjoy the view..

We stopped at Eagle Bluff lighthouse, I sat and enjoyed the view while Kris took some pictures. We spent a good 2 hours in the park.. It was a beautiful day, beautiful day to be walking around the park.

After we left the park, we drove into fish creek, there is this coffee shop I like to go to, we stopped there, then we drove back to our resort.

We went to Moja Rosa’s for dinner… little diner with a Hispanic feel to it, but we had Hawaiian Pizza, for dinner, and chips& salsa along with cheesy garlic bread for an appetizer,

After dinner we walked north along the shoreline in front of our resort, took pictures of the beautiful sunset, even though it was little chilly, I still enjoyed the view.

4/18/09…….

Good morning from the Edgewater Resort, where the sun is shining, blue sky’s and temps going to be in the upper 60″s It is a beautiful day to go to the spa, and go site seeing..

Going to the spa is how I started my day.. I had a spa session , this morning at The Spa at Sacred Grounds in Ephraim. This is the first time going to there spa. I first heard about the spa when we came in Sept, I even booked the session, then I cancelled, I booked a spa session when we came in December, but I canceled it for a second time. I don’t know why I cancelled the sessions but I did… I booked the appointment two weeks before we were going up to Door County, therefore if I wanted to cancel the appointment ( again) it would give me plenty of time. I would definitely go there again, staff is friendly, small and quaint.. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed my one hour facial, and one hour Sundari facial, and I will definitely incorporate in my weekend stays up to Door County, but something was off, I don’t know if it was because my last two spa experiences were in Maui… (need I say more))…

After I pampered and embarrassed myself at the spa. Wondering how a person could embarrass themselves at the spa. long story short, my BOA card wouldn’t work so Kris had to come in and pay for my spa session. We drove into the town by Bailey’s Harbor, and had lunch at Espresso bar, it’s a small cafe that overlooks Lake Michigan and other small shops. We sat and enjoyed the nice weather.. although along the Lake Michigan side of Door County it was little cooler..

After Lunch we drove along the harbor.. did some site seeing, drove by Kangaroo Lake, We walked to the Cana Island Lighthouse and enjoyed the view of the light house and scenery along Lake Michigan.. If you like to sit and enjoy the view of the lake, there are some great rocks you can sit on and enjoy the view..

Cana Island Lighthouse… Walk the 50o’ rock walk way to Cana Island and its 1869 light house.. The gr0unds are maintained much as the 19th century. The waters surrounding the island were once the scene of numerous shipwreckers‘

After spending time in Bailey’s harbor’ we drove south toward Sturgeon bay, where ate dinner in Downtown Sturgeon bay, even though the shops were closed , and not to many people visiting, because it is still early in the season, things won’t open until may 1st it was still nice to walk around. We had dinner at Pudgy Seagull After dinner we drove to our resort.

The best way to cap off a good day, and great weekend is by watching hockey, aka Stanley Cup Conference finals. Boston Bruins Vs Montreal Canadians on TV and listening to the Blackhawks game via Internet. Tomorrow we are leaving it’s been a great weekend. the weather was great.

Another Great Weekend in Door County, it was quiet, but we knew that before we planned the weekend getaway. , Most of the shops and restaurant s are closed until may 1st, but the weather has been great. Temps in the upper 60′s, great weather for us to go site seeing. Till we come to Door County again.

Kris and Cindy's Blog

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Category Archives: Door County