August 13th-August 24, 2013 WISCONSIN- Door County & Two Rivers

We have reached the point of our "Road Trip" where we're at the relaxing point, no more rushing around from this scenic sight on to the next one & Wisconsin is a great state to just relax in!We left Michigan's U.P. & headed to Wisconsin's Door County. Not a long drive we were pretty much on the Michigan/Wisconsin state line border!  

                                           We pulled into Bailey's Grove RV park,

Our destination while we're in Door County. The RV park is in Bailey's Harbor, just one of many Harbor Tourist Towns on the peninsula. It was a real nice campground .....

& we had a real nice site!

I said we were just going to relax but we lucked out I guess you could say! The same Tall Ships Festival that was going on while we were in Duluth was now working it's way to Green Bay, Wisc. The Tall Ships were going to "spend the night" in Sturgeon Bay on their way to Green Bay for the Festival. Unlike Duluth, while they are docked in Sturgeon Bay, this is not a paid event, anyone can go view the ships. Soooooooo we grabbed our folding chairs, Otis, camera & headed to a good spot. There were 9 Tall Ships coming into the bay.

they were something to watch!

We didn't watch all 9 come into the bay because.....more than one ship fired off a cannon! The first one was unexpected but the next time, the ship was right in front of us when we heard,"FIRE IN THE HOLE" than BOOM! Then....poor Otis was scared to death! We decided that was too much for Otis so we left after 6 of the 9 ships sailed by us!

What a wimpy dog!!!

Now.....back to relaxing! We did that ! We had our picnics!

more than one....

there was another one, but that will come later in Two Rivers!

We saw some of what Wisconsin has to offer as far as scenery!

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Everything we did wasn't just picnics & scenery! We drove to Egg Harbor, another harbor tourist town & one very familiar to me! My Uncle Steve lived in Egg Harbor. As a young kid we heard so much about Egg Harbor,Wisc from our mother, we thought Egg Harbor must be HEAVEN!! Then the summer of 1968 my Uncle Steve drove from Egg Harbor to our home in St.Charles, Illinois & brought my mom  & my sister & brothers still at home, up to his home for a week of "HEAVEN"! We had a great time! Uncle Steve has long passed on but his house is still there, tho no longer occupied by family, & his business Follett's Watch Us Grow, is still in operation in Sturgeon Bay by his grandson. Lennie & I were able to visit part of my Uncle's house because the current owner runs a little Homemade pickle & jam shop in the front! I told the current owner who I was before I started taking pictures! She was real friendly & knew my  Aunt & Uncle quite well!

We found a few things to do in Egg Harbor! Besides looking at my Uncle's home, fun for us, there was a car show in town!

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Even Otis enjoyed the car show, or maybe he didn't, it was pretty warm the day of the car show!

All the Harbor towns are close together so when we learned their was going to be a SMALL  Blues Concert, I say small because there was only one performer, Loyd Jones! He played an hour & a half.

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In fact, he played right into sunset!

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Otis did NOT go to the Blues concert with us, & here's another fun thing we did without Otis while visiting Egg Harbor. We went to a Fish Boil-over dinner at a restaurant called Pelletier's.They start the Fish boils at 5:00pm each night & every half hour there's a fish boil over show!

Your meal is complete, dinner, drink & dessert!

You don't have to have the fish, we chose baked chicken...

the new potatoes & onions that are in with the fish, come with every meal!

You can watch the demonstration the whole time, tho they do ask you to stand back when it comes time for the boil over! The heat is really intense!

We were in Door county at the tail end of Cherry season so you know what dessert was!?!I had a picture of my slice of cherry pie, but....somehow it's lost somewhere in cyber space. trust me the pie was good!

I mentioned we were in door county at the end of cherry season, this was just one of a few of the farm markets we visited!

We ate our fair share of cherry samples, & we bought our fair share of cherries! Maybe the season wasn't over, maybe we just ate them all!?!

While we're on the topic of eating....we made a stop at Wilson's a must see Door County landmark, since 1906. We should have gone here after the car show since the place is retro!

It was another warm day when we were here in Ephraim, at Wilson's. We both had a root beer float & it was GOOOOOOD!In 1906 Oscar & Mattie Wilson opened the store as just a candy & ice cream shop. but now you can get a full meal, but save room for dessert!

After driving the peninsula visiting all the harbor towns we realized we hadn't really done anything in Bailey's Harbor where we were staying except stay there!?! Bailey's Harbor didn't let us down! They too had a Blues Concert, a group from Chicago called Big Shoes??? Never heard of them!?!

one day a Blues concert....

                                                    the next day a Farmer's Market!
We saw everything we wanted to see here in Door County. The Cherries were all gone, it was time to move on, & so.....we did!
Our next stop was Two Rivers,Wisconsin. You know what their claim to fame is!?! It was in Two Rivers that the ICE CREAM SUNDAE  was invented! YUM!

                                      We are staying at SeaGull Marina & RV Park.

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(the office)

It wasn't the type of RV park that I would take a family vacation at! If you were a fisherman it was a great park. We had a enjoyable view of Lake Michigan.

the view out our front dash window.

the site spots were very close to one another!

I think this was Otis' favorite RV park because.....a McDonald's was at the entrance to the RV park!

& he never got a McDouble while we were here!

We were suppose to be here in Two Rivers for a week, but while we were in Door County Lennie got word from his mother that his one of his cousins in Illinois, who's been in poor health for a long time was now in failing health.He told the owner at Seagull that we might have to leave earlier than expected. He was a real nice guy told us not to worry about it....It was the Blue Moon while we were there at Seagull Marina. What a great shot that made reflecting over Lake Michigan!

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The full moon wasn't the only beautiful reflection over Lake Michigan. Sunset was equally as beautiful!

There wasn't a whole lot going on in Two Rivers. It was really sad, what use to be quite an industrial town was now pretty much dead.We walked Otis from the RV park to the end of town & back to the RV park.

We did manage a picnic of course!!! This was my favorite picnic because it was restaurant bought!!!

Lennie has wanted a Sheboygan brat ever since we entered Wisconsin! We finally got them. Because Otis was with us we bought them & went to a park to eat them. Lennie ordered a hot dog for Otis...Hold the Bun please! I enjoyed my brat too!

Hey where's Otis' picture with his hot dog!

All too soon Lennie got the phone call he knew was going to happen, his cousin Connie had passed. We left Two Rivers the morning after he received the news.We enjoyed your Lake Michigan while we were here, that's for sure.....

The owner of the RV park was such a nice guy, he even refunded Lennie for the days we didn't stay! He didn't have to do that either.....

On to Illinois!

August 6-12th Iron Mountain, Michigan--Back to my Roots!

We left Munising, Michigan the morning of August 6th & went to Iron Mountain, Michigan. This is still in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We arrived at Rivers Bend RV park in Iron Mountain!

It was a real nice RV park

Most of the RVs here were in permanent set-up sites. The owner was a real nice guy, kept  the place very well maintained. the only thing I didn't like about the place was....NO WI-FI! Oh they had it, but we were so woodsy I could never get connected(got some knitting done tho) ! Due to my lack of Internet connection, I am going to wrap a week into one blog, since I was unable to blog daily!

During our week here at Rivers Bend RV Park, we had the typical Michigan weather:cold,rainy,sunshine, repeat, cold,rainy,sunshine, repeat.....on our sunshiny days we did manage to see some nice sunsets!

                                                                          OOOOOH!

AAAAH!

OOOH & AAAH !

                            We also saw some waterfalls, rain or shine!

 Pine River Falls

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We even drove over to Wisconsin(we were right on the state line!)to view some falls!

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We did some hiking.....

Enjoyed all of nature....

mushroom!.

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Had our picnics....

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This picnic was "SPECIAL" more about that later!

We saw local sights & nearby towns...

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There are 500 steps that lead up to  the Pine Mountain Ski Jump,the largest man-made ski jump. Did we walk them!?! Noooooo we didn't, there's a road that also leads to the top!

Another local tourist attraction, Iron Mountain Iron Mine & Museum, in Vulcan, Michigan

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I swear I heard Jimmy Dean singing,"Big Bad John"!?!

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The Mine tour was going just fine until I saw a movement & the tour guide said, "Oh that's just a BAT"!!!! I saw that same movement 3 more times & I wanted out of that mine!

From our RV Park we drove to Spread Eagle, Wisconsin, about a 10 minute drive to see a summer tourist attraction, water skiers! These skiers were kids ranging from 8-18!

The show was very entertaining & FREE too!!!

And nobody can go to Michigan's Upper Peninsula without having an infamous Pastie! It's a tradition!

The Pasties were a staple of the miners.The traditional pastie was a complete meal consisting of meat,potato,onion & seasoning all wrapped in a crust & baked.Now they come in a variety of flavors but I still order the traditional pastie!

Yum!!!

My goal while we were in the U.P. was to "go back to my family roots"! Iron Mountain, Michigan is the area my grandparents were from, Foster City to be exact.

We drive into Foster City,

<---Yep, that's the town! The post office! Next to the post office is a Bed & Breakfast, but it's for sale so I don't know how much longer it will be part of the town??? We tried to find my grandparents homestead as we'd been there 5 years earlier, but we couldn't recognize where we thought it was??? It was lunch time & our picnic was in the back of the car & lucky for us, Foster City actually had a little park!!

(remember this picnic picture!?!) After our picnic, the need to use the bathroom was overwhelming. the only bathroom was in the form of an outhouse & it was kind of scary looking!?! Lennie used it & yelled out, "It's okay Wen, it has a cement floor & everything!" But I spotted something right by the bathroom door that made me think I didn't have to use the bathroom as bad as I thought!!!

I don't even want to hear the word HARMLESS!

Back to my roots! The 2nd time we drove the country roads, we spotted the old homestead hidden in the pine trees!

This house is over 100 years old, & no one has lived there since the early 50's.

It amazed me after all these years that the house is still standing!

                                   I can't say the same for "the little house" outback!

After taking pictures, we went to the Foster City Cemetery to see the family plots.

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My great grandfather(the original Haggblad) .

my grandfather .

my grandmother 

Also buried in the family plot was their son Walter who died at 5 yrs old from measles.

Of course, along side the Erickson plots are the Swanson plots(my grandma's side of the family. It was interesting to walk through the cemetery & read all the names. There were a lot of Erickson's(besides us!),Nelson's, Anderson's, Peterson's, definitely a Scandinavian community within the cemetery......

Tuesday morning August 13th we left Rivers Bend RV Park. This time when we leave we are leaving the Upper Peninsula & Michigan all together. We are going to Door County, Wisconsin. We have a 3 hour drive ahead of us. Before we pulled out the owner of the RV Park came over to say Good-bye to us, told you her was a nice guy!!!!

Good.bye Michigan, Wisconsin here we come!