Flying Adventures with Frank & Jolene: Sturgeon Bay – Door County

Well, it’s been awhile since the last blog. It’s not that we stopped flying; far from it. Every other week we fly somewhere.

As of right now, as a pilot, I have just shy of 1,000 hours in the air. That equates to about 132,000 miles. Jolene and I have visited 124 different airports. These range from many large international airports to REALLY little grass strips, one located on an island where we took our bikes.

Perhaps it’s that we have more fun flying than writing.

We’re learning a lot. We’ve visited MANY museums and communities. Most of all, we’re having a great time. Though we fly every 2 weeks, our “refrigerator list” isn’t shrinking; it’s growing. It’s now 5 typewritten pages of places we want to visit and 4 typewritten pages of places we’ve been.

The trip we took this weekend wasn’t terribly far but it was fun and kinda typical.

First some geography and background.

We know (don’t we) that Illinois and Wisconsin form the Western border of Lake Michigan.

When we first moved to Illinois, various people would entreat us with, “Oh, you have to visit Door County.” The words they used over and again were, “It’s the New England of the Midwest”. At the time, I wasn’t even sure what that meant, but I was intrigued. Looking at the map above, Door County is the peninsula of land that you see just North and East of Green Bay, Wisconsin. The peninsula separates Green Bay (the bay) from Lake Michigan.

My first impression upon visiting Door County was that indeed, it’s JUST like New England provided that:

A. You’re from the Midwest and

B. You’ve never actually been to New England.

Which is to say, it’s nothing at all like New England. What it is is a peninsula of endless shops and restaurants. Being a peninsula, it is also often characterized by bumper to bumper traffic. So, why go here and more to the point, why go here more than once? Well, Door County does have its own charm and it’s a great place to just poke around, stopping in shops, visiting state parks, hiking trails, lighthouses and stocking up on Wisconsin food.

Hmm, so what’s Wisconsin food?

Well, for Wisconsonites, there are only three foods on the pyramid:

A. Bratwurst (of all flavors)

B. Cheese and

C. Beer

So, when Jolene mentioned that this was the Door County Cherry Festival, who could resist?

So, Saturday morning at 7 AM we lifted off and flew into beautiful, cloudless, sunny skies and wended our way North along the shores of Lake Michigan. I’m tellin’ ya; it was gorgeous! As we flew over Milwaukee and watched commercial jets taking off below us the air was so clear we could see completely across Lake Michigan 85 or so miles to the other side. We saw the sun shining bright on the lake and the occasional fishing boats. It was beautiful. You would swear you were flying along the Caribbean; provided of course that:

A. You’re from the Midwest and

B. You’ve never actually been to the Caribbean.

It took about an hour and we landed at Sturgeon Bay’s “Cherryland Airport”.

Not much else to report on this trip. We spent the day walking around, visiting NUMEROUS shops, a lighthouse, the cherry festival, replete with home crafts and a folk singer and yes, we returned with all manner of Wisconsin staples in our cooler: