The Ray Adventures: Door County& Marquette, Mi.

We've gone as far north as we're going for a while, Marquette, Mi. is so lovely, right on the shores of Lake Michigan. The air is so crisp and clean here I don't think I've ever seen the world so clear. Maybe I should clean my glasses more often. Being so far north sunset isn't until almost 10:00. Locals say you can see the aurora borealis, I hope we get to see the light show while we're here.

Tuesday, May 26th, The day started out warm and partly sunny, decided to shed the jeans. We left Luci in the coach to go to Green Bay, Wisconsin's oldest settlement early as the 1600's Europeans were trading beaver pelts. Green Bay's claim to fame, in the early 1900's they invented the first splinter free toilet paper. Now you know. Green Bay, population 104,000, is the smallest city to have an NFL team, founded in 1919 by a meat packing company, hence "Packers" got their name. Since 1957 the team has been owned by the fans through stock purchase, our tour guides, Larry and Jack are shareholders. The Green Bay Packers started playing semi-pro ball on a high school football field. Eventually the Packers organization purchased a 53 acre farm to build their own stadium, at the time it was outside the city, now there are houses across the street. The games have been sold out forever and there is a waiting list for season tickets, don't hold your breath to get one, the list is over 116,000, remember the population of GB is 104,000, people from all over the world are on the waiting list. The tour started in the new Atrium, finished in 2003, Jack and Larry were our guides. They were a "hoot" besides knowledgeable in all things Packer. We got to see all the usual places, the suites, club seats, etc, but we got to go up to the roof, the highest point in the county. We didn't get to see the locker room, they do have a picture on the wall, the room is shaped like a football.  The visiting team has to traverse 24 steps from their locker room to the field. On game day after a heavy snowfall they put out a notice that the snow in the stadium needs to be shoveled, people line up about 5 am to shovel. They are paid $10.00 an hour in cash. We were in the tunnel waiting to go out to the field, the doors go up so fast they make a "whooshing" sound. This was our second favorite stadium we've visited, of course Dallas being the Cadillac of all stadiums. By the time we got to the field it started to rain and just turn nasty cold and windy. The weatherman promised us a warm day. We finished our tour about 1:30, went downtown to find a (what else?) Titletown Brewing Co. in a historic rail road depot. By the time we finished lunch it was really pouring. We skipped dinner after the late lunch. We planned our itinerary for the next 3 weeks.

Wednesday, May 27th. We woke up to drizzly fog, our plan for the day was to drive as far North as you can without taking the ferry to Mt. Washington about 40 miles. We decided to skip the ferry, it was $60. rt, people we'd talked to about the island were not too encouraging. By the time we got to the tip of the peninsula the sun came out. The small towns in Door county are only 5-10 miles apart. We stopped in Fish Creek for lunch at a wood fired pizza parlor that our neighbor at the park recommended, his cousin owns it. Delish. We drove south to Egg Harbor to walk around the shops, I found a boutique I could have spent $$$$ I loved all the clothes. Of course all the usual tourist trap "stuff". We got back in time to take the Nature Walk trail at the park before the thunderstorms rolled in, lasting about 3 hours. I didn't crawl under the bed so they couldn't have been too bad.

Thursday, May 28th, A busy last day before heading to Michigan. The RV park is in Carlsville, a small township about 10 miles north of Sturgeon Bay. The clouds and rain are gone, it's a beautiful sunny day near 80 degrees with a light breeze, PERFECT! The RV park has the only water park in Door County, every time we walked by I could comment I wanted to go down the slides. We were the only two people in the pool with 3 lifeguards to make sure the old folks don't drown. The two slides twist and turn down into the pool pretty quickly. So much fun! The downside, you had to climb 43 steps back up to the top. We went down 10 times, really didn't want to stop but we had to "pretty-up" for dinner. I had read about the fish boil dinner that is unique to Door County. Again, we talked to neighbors, all the locals were ho hum, saying they preferred their fish fried, well duh, who doesn't? We still wanted to try it. The settlers had to come up with a way to feed groups of hard working folks, so the fish boil was created. You arrive for dinner a half an hour early to see your dinner get cooked by the boil master. A large pot of boiling water with 10 lbs of salt sitting over a huge fire awaits you, first they add the baby red potatoes, bring them to boil again for about a few  minutes then add the Texas sweet boiling onion, again bringing back to a boil for about a few minutes before adding the Lake Michigan Whitefish, bone in, skin on. Brought back to a boil again, when the fish oil comes to the top, just before removing dinner from the pot he adds #1 fuel to the fire beneath the kettle. The flames burst causing the water to boil over and the fish oils to flame. When the flames die out dinner is ready! Delish! Poo-Poo to the locals who think it's boring. The bones and skins were easy to remove, one of my concerns when I made the reservations. Dinner included the potatoes, onions, coleslaw, bread, fish, non alcoholic drink and cherry pie all for $15.00. YUM YUM YUM . The peninsula is known for the cherry orchards. We waddled out of there, picking up a geo cache in a cemetery on the way back to the park. We got ready to move out in the morning by putting away all the outside "things" and the bikes on the car.

Friday, May 29th, We left Harbour Village about 10:15 but by the time we fueled up it was 10:45 before we hit the road, w had a 230 mile drive to Michigan ahead of us. We had to travel south through the city of Green Bay before heading up the west side of Green Bay (the body of water). Just after entering Michigan at Menominee we stopped for lunch, parking in a shopping center lot. I visited the Welcome Center while Gary and Luci took a walk picking up a geo cache. We went back to the Eastern time zone at Escanaba . We finally arrived at Tourist Camp in Marquette about 6:30, feeling whipped. When we change locations Gary calls Dish Network to change the local channels.  This time "Jake" answered, when Gary thought he was on hold he said "I wonder if it's Jake from State Farm, I answered "ask him what he's wearing".  We kind of chuckled at our humor, Jake had heard everything we'd said. He was a good sport though, he's had it happen before.

Saturday, May 30th, Marquette is the largest city in the Upper Peninsula, population a little over 20,000 is home to Northern Michigan University and is a major Port on Lake Superior. There are so many things to see and do here we started our day hiking to waterfalls. There are 12 listed you can either hike to or drive by on the road plus many more falls on the trails leading to the main fall. Our 1st was the Dead River Forestville Falls, we weren't able to make it up all the way, the trail got too serious for our liking but we did see several along the way.  Further down river we hiked to Dead River Wright St. Falls. An easier hike but still strenuous. Gary is part billy goat while I huff and puff my way up the trail. On the way down we found a series of geo caches, picking up 6 along the way. The next to last one was a steep climb in loose sand, it took a while but I made it to the top, stopping to admire the view along the way. Luci had a swell time tearing around the loose sand, digging and rolling. Can't take her anywhere. We decided to drive into downtown Marquette for lunch, of course turning the wrong way. We took a scenic drive along the shore of Lake Superior. Finally we found a cute place called Doghouse Pub. Our server Ken was very helpful in telling us where to go. After "linner" we went back to the coach and crashed.

Sunday, May 31st Our day trip to the NW tip of the UP was truly all day, we left about 10 and got back to the coach around 9:00. A couple we met in Cleveland told us a couple of places to go in the UP. We had to stop at the Hilltop restaurant in L'Anse for their famous sweet rolls-ok if they insist. While I was in the restroom Gary ordered 2, the waitress asked him if he knew how big they were. She said start with one then order another if we want. It was bigger than a brick. OMG! I couldn't finish my half, as had as I tried. Delish! And only $4.00. We drove through the town of Houghton, home to Michigan Tech and Finlandia University. A major shipping channel connects Lake Superior east to west (or the other way around) Our goal was to go to the end Hwy 41, as it turns out it was the beginning, which runs 1,990 miles through 8 states to Florida. From Copper Harbor you can catch a passenger ferry to Isle Royale, a national park about 50 mile off the coast of the Keewenaw Peninsula. The area is heavily forested, the view driving up was a bit boring, we drove south from Copper Harbor to Eagle River on the west side of the lakeshore, very pretty. We needed to hurry to Orntongon to a quilt gallery. We didn't make it , just ran out of time, it closed at 5, in hindsight we should have gone there first. One the way back we stopped at the town of Champion, turns out it was a model company town built by Henry Ford in the 30's. Gary toured the old sawmill while I exercised Luci. We had noticed the building on the way north, we couldn't figure out what it was. It looked like a school with one of those old fashioned slide fire escapes but had a 95 foot smoke stack. Next stop dinner at Ispening, the Jasper Ridge Brewery, about 20 miles from Marquette. We quizzed our waitress on a couple of puzzling things, we had seen a couple of references to "Yooper's", ????? It is the term they use to describe the people who live in the UP, now that makes sense.(?)
We had noticed that the logs on the trucks were all cut short then loaded sideways compared to the NW way,  30 foot or so logs hauled lengthwise. No one yet has answered that question except one old guy, he said that's just the way they've always done it. Okay then.

Monday, June 1st, It's hard to believe it's June already. The weather is much improved with a warming trend this week. We decided to stay at the coach and do "nothing". As it turns out nothing means doing laundry, going to post office to pick up mail, washing the coach and washing and waxing the Jeep. All before breakfast as my grandma would say. Needless to say we were a little tired.

That's it for the week, enjoy the pic's,

TTFN

Gary and Pam