The Door to a Family Vacation

Up until I was in my teenage years, my family had taken perhaps one or two large trips outside of the Midwest. Finances and the pressures of raising a middle class family with three boys placed pressures on my parents, recessions being the bottom era. As getaways, we were steeped in wooded lore as we camped around the Midwest, often time with my Uncle Terry, Aunt Carol and three cousins of near identical age to my brothers and I. My imagination was spurred by the Turkey Run campground in western Indiana with suspension bridges over rocky creeks, the woodland shores of western Michigan near Holland, and of course what I call the Cape Cod of the Midwest, the peninsula country of Door County in northeast Wisconsin. 

My earliest memories of Door County were catching wryly whitefish with my father about twenty years back before the towns of Sister Bay, Fish Creek, Egg Harbor and Ephriam expanded with tourists pouring in from all spots of the upper Midwest, mainly Chicago. Wisconsin is after all Illinois’ largest state park. Dad said back then the area had become ‘yuppy-ized’ and for his assessment, he isn’t too far off. Any craft loving middle-aged housewife with find their fair share of lawn ornament shops with identical wooden lawn chairs out front. One insistence that the Door County board has stuck with is limited corporate ownership and representation. Ma and Pa shops and restaurants with creativity and local product emphasis line the one-lane roads of each tiny downtown that at peak season can become bottle-necked.

A few weeks back Ally and I drove up with my brother Ryan and sister-in-law Heather for an extended family get-away in Door County where we had an excuse to visit with my Uncle Terry and Aunt Carol. A few years back Terry and Carol bought a 22 acre farm, complete with crumbling barns and a farmhouse, each of which has since been refurbished. Terry introduced my brothers and I a few years back to the peel your eyelids back/white knuckle thrill of jet-skiing in Ellison Bay out to Green Bay and ATV rides through the prairie grass. This year we repeated the high adventure by having Ally, Heather and my brother Eric’s girlfriend Julie join us. The first ride back seems the scariest for every errand wave convinced my mind of capsizing a half mile out, never mind of course I was wearing a life vest. I had Ally go out by herself and by God I could hear screams of joy, the James Bond theme song she was playing in her head at thirty miles per hour on open water also in our minds. I went far enough out from the harbor into the more tumulus open water of Green Bay to see the long southern bend of the Door peninsula.

Soaked and plenty sunburned, we wisely took advantage of the hours left in the afternoon to a required visit at Bea’s homemade pies in Gills Rock. The sweet fanatic that I can be bought three pies, two Dutch apple and one cherry – I feel their secret recipe is in the fact that they sugar coat the crust, don’t use the gelatinous corn syrup like nearby Seaquist Orchards, and have a delicious buttery flavor that can only come from the most unhealthy of ingredients – lard. Both Bea’s and Seaquist have top notch canned products as well. The cabinets my condo are complete with jams, pickles, cherry barbeque sauce and toffee drizzle thanks to Door County visits. 

The restaurant scene in Door County has grown in creativity and quality the past five years whether it be improving cottage style breakfast joints like the Scandinavian Al Johnson’s in Sister Bay, seaside fish and steak spots like Pellitier’s Fish Boil in Fish Creek, micro-brew pubs with Shipwrecked in Egg Harbor, and dynamite old-timey ice-cream parlors with candy-stripped awnings like Wilson’s in Ephraim. Former hot spots like the Sister Bay bowl and the Cookery in Fish Creek have gone down the tubes, forcing the restaurateur to ask if the chefs recognize salt, pepper or cinnamon. 

On our first night in the peninsula, us boys and our ladies decided to invite the family with us to re-visit a lunch and dinner spot on the main strip of Fish Creek – Cooper’s Corner. Veterans of Door County might be right in saying that Cooper’s replaced the more family atmosphere of two spots that dominated that corner for a more upscale dining experience. One Google reviewer listed the place as a hideous monstrosity by which I think I would call a unique inside and out dining experience, save for the restaurants need to control the local fly population. Most of my family ordered the slow cooked ribs slathered in a delicious cherry barbeque sauce. I went big with the 18oz Delmonico and had enough room to spare for leftovers of family around me – either I ran a 5K that day before or my stomach purchased a studio apartment for the room I apparently had to sample everything. When much of Door County can appear to repeat itself after a mere three to four days (the best amount of time to visit) Cooper’s Corner is a refreshing dining experience.

Our journey wrapped up with a family dinner in Terry and Carol’s old farmhouse. The vast county, peppered with trees amongst large stretches of prairie grass and farmland full of cherry trees and winter wheat had a satisfying silence to the cool air off the lake. When the sun faded and a moonless night appeared, all those years of woodland adventures taught me not to fear the near pitch night. Our bonfire, which spiked our blood pressure at first with a twenty foot flame thanks to Terry’s dousing of gasoline, welcomed us all in the quiet night to lawn chairs and a seat on a rock with a Wisconsin favorite Leinenkugals in our hand. Up north, away from light and air pollution of the Milwaukee and Chicagoland areas, you squint enough and amongst the plethora of brilliant stars you’ll see a satellite pass in the low atmosphere, reminding you that your stargazing brings about that itch for a future adventure.