Door County

Isaac and I decided to go for a short get-away over the Memorial Day weekend. We went up to Door County, Wisconsin (this is the peninsula section that sticks out into Lake Michigan). We stayed in a crappy hotel, and this was the first time in almost 6 years of marriage that Isaac and I have ever stayed in a hotel together. (Pathetic, I know.)

Unfortunately the hotel was a dump. The room was supposed to be non-smoking, but it was obviously a smoking room sometime in the past. And the beds were hard as rocks. But the worst part about staying there was that a band was playing in the Office/Bar/Restaurant building that night until 2:30am. The building the band was playing in was a good 100+ feet away, and even with our fan blowing full blast we could still hear the thumping of the bass line all night. Normally I don't sleep very well, but add pregnancy, a hard bed, poor temperature control, and an obnoxious band and I didn't sleep much at all that night. Argh.

Anyway, we spent the majority of our trip traveling around going to all the state parks in the area. (Note: State Parks in Wisconsin are not at all like ones in Utah. They are usually really small, only a couple acres, and aren't very far from homes or civilization. When you get to the parks they give you a map of all the hiking (i.e.: walking) trails. These maps do not designate distance very well, so it is always shocking when you walk 100 yards and reach the end of the trail.)

First, we went to one the Whitefish Dunes State Park to check out the sand dunes. I thought this park was hilarious because there were no sand dunes. We walked down to the beach and there was about 10 feet of sand between the water and the grass/weeds that they considered the "sand dunes". Isaac was so upset that they considered those dunes. He ranted about it the entire walk back to the car. I thought it was so funny.

Then we went to Cave Point County Park. This is one of the main attractions of Door County. We have seen many pictures of this area. Unfortunately we didn't realize that the entire park was about 100 yards long and the one famous picture we have seen over and over is the only section that looks like that. Also, Wisconsinites apparently use the word "cave" and "cliff" interchangeable because there were no caves anywhere, only 20 foot cliffs into the ocean. Once again Isaac was disappointed, so I had to explain that we had already hit the main attraction and that everything else will pale in comparison.

Isaac and I keep expecting our outdoor adventures in Wisconsin to be equivalent to those in Utah and the West. But that just makes us disappointed by everything we experience in Wisconsin. We constantly try to lower our expectations out here, but it seems we can never get them quite low enough. Fortunately we were just looking forward to spending a nice, relaxing weekend together before Sophie is born. And luckily I wasn't up for much hiking or adventure because of the pregnancy, so we were able to still have a good time.

We also traveled around to see some of the lighthouses in the area. Some of them were pretty pathetic, but others were fairly large. I think these may have been the first lighthouses I have ever seen. I enjoyed taking some pictures of the places we traveled (which is why I am not in very many of these pictures).

We went to a few other state parks and walked around. The parks are interspersed between lots of small, touristy towns. Some areas were really crowded due to the holiday weekend, but we spent a little bit of time walking around window shopping. We even ate dinner at a nice little pizza parlor.
On the way home we stopped in Green Bay at Lambeau Field to see where the Packers play football. Isaac thought the stadium was really cool, but we weren't able to see much of it because it is locked unless they are giving tours. But now we can bond with all the Wisconsin people by saying we have been to the Packers stadium. ;)

Overall it was a great get-away. Isaac and I enjoyed spending time together and talking about everything. It was really relaxing to not think about work and school for a couple days. Things are going to be busy for us during the next couple months, and it was a well-needed break.