Monday morning, we ventured out for our final camping trip of the 2023 season! We headed about four hours north of us, to Door County in Northeast Wisconsin. If you’re not familiar, Door County makes up the peninsula that is sometimes called “Wisconsin’s thumb”. It’s bordered on the west by Green Bay (the body of water, not the football team!) and on the east by Lake Michigan. Fun fact…the Door Peninsula is the western end of the Niagara Escarpment and the eastern end is in our hometown of Rochester, NY! Since it’s surrounded by water, it’s a popular tourist destination and we visited here ten years ago on a beautiful summer day – so we thought it would be nice to return to catch some fall foliage since it’s considered one of the top places in the Midwest for fall color.  

The Peninsula’s name comes from the Native Americans who lost many tribe members trying to cross the passage between the peninsula and nearby Washington Island in canoes, so they called it “Door of Death”…I guess that explains the 200+ shipwrecks in the area.

As it turns out, we’re a bit early for the fall color. They’re only at about 30%…it’s likely that next week will be the peak. Oh well, when I booked this trip back in May, I took a shot that this would be a good week!

The drive north took us through the Western suburbs of Chicago on an interstate that is ALWAYS under construction, so that was fun. From there, we headed into Wisconsin, through Racine and Milwaukee, up towards Green Bay and then to Brussels, WI and the Door County KOA. The European influence is evident here – nearby cities include Belgium, Denmark, and Luxemburg (spelled without the o). On our way, we saw the world’s largest symbol of freedom…a 400-foot-tall flagpole that flies a flag measuring 70’ x 140’. The flag weighs 250 pounds…it must take a team of people to raise/lower it! It’s at the headquarters of Acuity Insurance, in Sheboygan WI.

We didn’t feel the need to stop in Green Bay at all; we visited there ten years ago, took a Segway ride, toured Lambeau Field, and I tried on a cheesehead…if you’ve done that once, there’s really no need to repeat it! A few memories from our time in Green Bay in 2013…

Our campground is one of the nicest KOAs we’ve stayed at – lots of space between the campsites, and we have a ‘deluxe’ site that includes a stamped concrete patio, a nice patio table/chairs, glider bench, and gas grill. No walking through gravel and dirt to get into the trailer.

Monday was a perfect night for a campfire, and with the very clear skies, we were amazed at how many stars we could see – this campground is far enough away from most of the light pollution that usually obscures them, so it was truly a star-lit night!

Tuesday morning, we drove north on the peninsula to Sister Bay and caught a scenic boat tour that took us out on Green Bay for 75 minutes to enjoy Door County from the water. If the foliage was further along, it would have been truly breathtaking to enjoy all the color from the water…but it was still a really fun trip. The narrator was great and shared a lot of the area’s history. It’s evident that Door County is enjoyed as a summer getaway, given the beautiful, large homes that dot the coastline. Some are apparently occupied for just a few weeks each year because they are third or fourth homes for the owners.

Green Bay is one of the few bodies of water that freezes over every winter, sometimes as thick as three to six feet. I guess if you live in Door County, you need to really enjoy being outdoors in the winter to take advantage of all that ice! On a clear day, you can see across Green Bay to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which is about 17 miles away.

We had a small-world moment on the tour boat – we met a couple who were originally from Rochester; the man was an RIT alumnus and worked at Kodak for years. They’d since moved to Reno and then to Minnesota (how’s that for a change in weather?!), and here we are meeting them in Door County, WI!

After the tour, we drove south through Ephraim where I got some land-based photos of this cool building, the Anderson dock warehouse, that we’d seen from the water. Years ago, it was a log book of sorts, where ship’s captains would paint their ship’s name and the date on the building, in case they were lost at sea in the treacherous waters – people would know they had made it to Ephraim (which was only accessible by boat). Today, the town paints over sections of the building regularly so it’s a clean slate for visitors to add their ‘graffiti’. Inside the building is an art gallery. Very interesting!

From there, it was on to Peninsula State Park, the largest of five state parks on the peninsula. First stop, the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse which had a keeper from 1868 to 1926 and is now automated.

We enjoyed Skyline Road through the park (and again, it will be breathtaking in a week or so when the fall colors really pop!) and made our way to Eagle Tower, 60 feet high and 253 feet above Green Bay. When they rebuilt this a few years ago, they made it fully accessible by offering either 100 steps to the top, or an 850-foot canopy walk that winds through the treetops with a gradual incline. We took the easier option…up on the canopy walkway and down via the stairs! We enjoyed the impressive, panoramic views from the top!

I was looking through my photos from our last visit, and found that I took almost the exact same photo from one of the lookouts in Peninsula State Park…

Oh, and I should mention, it was about 75 degrees on Tuesday – a good 20 degrees above normal…just like our last trip to Wisconsin in June, you expect it to be cooler ‘up north’, but not this summer/fall!

Wednesday was a pretty quiet day. We drove into Sturgeon Bay, the peninsula’s largest city. Technically, north of Sturgeon Bay is an island, because Sturgeon Bay and Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal slice the peninsula and provide transport between Green Bay and Lake Michigan.

We visited the Sturgeon Bay Canal Light and caught a glimpse of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal Pierhead Light but we couldn’t get any photos because it’s in a restricted Coast Guard area and there’s no ‘public’ land with a decent view. There are 11 lighthouses around the peninsula. We wandered through the cute town and went in a few shops, and then had lunch at a nice little place near the water.

It was windy and threatening rain, so not the nicest day to be outdoors near the water, unfortunately. We spent the afternoon back at the campground, enjoying some down time. Mark brought his wood carving tools and spent some time “whittling”!

Thursday was an absolutely perfect fall day – temperatures in the mid-60s and bright sunshine – so we spent most of the day outdoors! We started with a visit to George K. Pinney County Park which is at the point where Sturgeon Bay meets Green Bay. We had a beautiful view of both bays, and the park has some amazing limestone cliffs, leftover from its days as a quarry.

We stopped for lunch at Sunset Park which is next to a massive shipbuilding facility – there were a couple cruise ships there for modification/refurbishment.

From there, we drove northeast to Cave Point County Park, on the shores of Lake Michigan about halfway up the peninsula. This place was amazing! The underwater caves were so cool to see, and the thundering noise as the water rushed in and out of them was incredible. There were so many places to walk out on the rocks and see the caves – I really gave my camera and my phone a good workout. I’m sure if we were in the water, the view would have been even better! The park is interesting because it’s fully surrounded by Whitefish Dunes State Park…we walked a trail that took us between the county park and the state park. The county park definitely steals the show – much more scenic! So glad we made this drive on such a gorgeous day!

After all that, we decided that, while in “America’s Dairyland”, we really needed to get some ice cream, so we headed back toward our campground and a shop we’ve passed each day, Renard’s Cheese. They had lots of yummy cheese samples to try, including that Wisconsin delicacy, cheese curds. We picked out some cheese to bring home with us, and then made the difficult decision of what ice cream flavors to try. I went for Cherry Chocolate Chip, and Mark chose Caramel Apple Pie. Both were absolutely delicious…yum! And the “nutritional information” was hilarious…

On our return trip to the campground, we stopped so I could take a few photos of the emerging color on the trees – the leaves have changed quite a bit just since we arrived on Monday, and the foliage report now shows Door Peninsula at 45% change (up from 30% on Monday). So, while we were a bit too early to really enjoy the leaves, it was a wonderful trip with fantastic weather and so much to see!

Friday morning’s process to leave the campground took a bit longer than usual, since RoVer Too will now go into winter storage for the next four months – there can’t be any water anywhere in the tanks or it will freeze, and I wanted to clean everything before Mark could do his flushing and emptying. We were on the road by 10:30am. We ran into heavy traffic in Milwaukee, rain on and off, and then ridiculously heavy traffic near Chicago, so our four-hour trip took every bit of seven hours – a much longer day that we had anticipated, but we arrived home safely before dark, so that’s all that matters!

So that wraps up our 3^rd season of camping, and our first season with RoVer Too – we’ve seen so many wonderful places in the Midwest since April, and are really happy with our decision to switch to a travel trailer – we love RoVer Too and know we’ll enjoy many more camping trips in it! Our 2024 season will start in early February, when we plan to head south for six weeks – we’ll be snowbirds and replace the cold & snow with warmth & sunshine. I might be back with some Chicago posts over the next few months, but if not, more to come in February 2024!