Tuesday July 14

#1 A pair of sandhill cranes in someone's front yard!
#2 Door Peninsula Winery
#3 Milking the cows at Schopf's Hilltop Dairy
#4 Goat roof mower at Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant.

A late start today b/c I woke up with a headache, but we managed to get a lot accomplished. We have seen most of what we really wanted to see already. We decided not to go out to Washington Island and kind of left today for a bit of shopping and taking in some more sights.

On the way to Carlsville, we stopped at a farmer’s market, but not too much fresh stuff. I did pick up a kohlrabi to try - the guy there recommended them raw w/ a bit of salt and said they were very healthy to eat. We have had them in pasties so I got one to try.

Our first stop was Carlsville and the Door Peninsula Winery. Kalen had requested a bottle of wine from there that she likes so while we were there I managed to taste SEVERAL more!!! We picked up a few things while there (but no wine for us) and then as we left, right across the street was a fruit stand with fresh cherries and strawberries. Since we had been looking for some we pulled in. It was a great choice! The strawberries passed the taste test but then I tried the cherries. He had some just picked this morning which were a different color that the other (I don’t know if they were a different variety or not), but he asked me to take a taste test between the two so I did….they were both GREAT! B/c of that, he gave me a pint of the just picked cherries and I got a quart of the others.

As we passed another dairy that claimed to have good ice cream, of course we had to try it....Schopf's Hilltop Dairy was the place and the ice cream was good. We watched the milking operation and it was interesting to see how it is done. One cow can produce up to 85 lbs. of milk per day! It was pretty amazing!

Then it was on to Stone Quarry County Park which proved to be mostly a boat launch site. The old stone quarry was across the road and all you could see was the stone cliffs. Jerry decided he needed diesel so we headed into Sturgeon Bay which is the largest city in the county I think. After getting diesel, we drove through the town’s historic district which was the downtown area. Some interesting storefronts, etc, but we did not stop. There is a big shipbuilding/repair industry in the town. There were huge drydocks with lots of ships being repaired, etc. Driving down one street we saw a yacht building company and they had the steel frame of a HUGE yacht welded together and they were still working on it. It was very interesting. Wish we could have stopped, but we watched a bit from the street.

One of the things on the must do list was to eat at Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant in Sister Bay. So we drove up to Sister Bay via Egg Harbor although we did not stop. We finally got to the restaurant and I don’t know how we missed it when we drove to Sister Bay the first day!!! It is a huge wooden restaurant with a sod roof. To keep the grass on the roof from getting too tall, they have goats up there to eat it!!! So it is the only restaurant I have ever been in with goats for mowers on the sod roof! The place was packed and it was about 2:00. We had a 20 minute wait. I went into the store part which had lots of things from Sweden and Norway - beautiful stuff, but a expensive. For lunch we had Swedish pancakes with Swedish meatballs as the meat side instead of bacon or sausage. It was wonderful, especially the lingonberries which go on the pancakes. Jerry did say that he thought my swedish pancakes were much better tasting, but it was a great meal. I bought some lingonberry preserves, ry krisp and norwegian shortbread cookies to bring back. That was a great stop.

From there I wanted to stop at the Tannenbaum Shop - a holiday shop in an old church. It was fascinating, but I was a bit rushed as sky was threatening and we left windows open in RV. Actually I did not get anything, and wished I had more time to look, but I did get a quick run through. Wanted to stop at an art gallery on the way back, but it was closed. We did stop at Keppel’s market to check out the sausages, produce and cheese….I have never seen so many jars of jelly, jam and salsas in my life! It was a very interesting place.

On the way back to the campground as we were passing some homes along the street, there were some huge long legged birds in the front yard. Jerry had asked about some birds he had seen when he was walking the dogs and there are sandhill cranes that nest and live around here. In one of the front yards, there was a pair of the sandhills. Check out the picture...they are interesting birds. Could not believe that they were right there in someone's front yard!

From there it was back to the RV and I have spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on the blog which I have let go for a few days. …I had to reconstruct some of what we did, but I think I got most of it.