What a beautiful day we had for our cruise on Saturday! After seeing the weather reports, I was expecting scattered showers but good temps. Well, again our weathermen were wrong. It was a little cloudy when the six of us left the Starlite Diner in Appleton. The traffic wasn’t bad and we had a nice 40 minute drive to Dyckesville. We were to meet someone at the Citgo gas station, but we were early so we hung out in the parking lot and got to know everyone a little better. Next was our scheduled stop at Sugar Mountain Farms and Antique Barn.

Just before Brussels is a touristy shop called Sugar Mountain Farms and Antique Barn. They have an assortment of Door County goodies, produce, wines, beer, a section of the barn for antiques, and some animals outside for kids/adults to feed. They had some huge pumpkins on display as well. I got a nice bottle of Door County wine for later that night to open while sitting around the campfire. It was appropriately named Hallowine, a spiced apple wine that turned out to taste just like an apple pie with ice cream. Very good. Anyway, by now we were anxious to get back on the road. We still had a little over an hour left of our cruise before we would arrive in Sister Bay and the time was starting to get a little late.

Traffic wasn’t bad as we cruised North through Egg Harbor on Hwy. 42, then through Fish Creek. We saw lots of kids slugging each other as we drove by and a few adults pointing at us. A few waves and thumbs ups as well. We were not the typical sight for a Saturday afternoon in Door County that was quite apparent. The day was warming up nicely and I was even able to open the sunroof and feel the nice warm air of Fall. It was almost too hot by midday! The color of the leaves were at peak. The true greens, golds, oranges, and purples were just awesome. When the occasional evergreen was in the middle of these awesome colors it was a like a painter’s picture. More beautiful than I can describe.

We had a great cruise all the way until we got to Ephraim. The time was getting to be around lunch time and traffic was getting thicker as we got closer to Sister Bay. I am sure this was in part due to Hwy. 42 and Hwy. 57 being blocked off for the parade in Sister Bay. We eked our way through Ephraim and arrived in Sister Bay a little before noon. A little later arrival than I had planned but still enough time for a fun afternoon. Thanks to Dale Hallen (Ellison Bay) and the Northern Door Child Care Center, we had a front row reserved at St. Rosalia’s Church for our club to park. We looked like our own little car show parked out in the front by the Highway. We were able to donate $40.00 to the Northern Door Child Care Center. From our parking, we had a downhill walk to the town of Sister Bay. We arrived at the parade area just as the parade was ending.

I never saw so many people in one area at one time. The street was just packed after the parade. It was like a sea of people. I have a picture of this and you’ll be able to see what I mean. Just incredible. We made our way past the shops, the craft fair area, and marina to the Lion’s Club Classic Car Show in hopes of finding Dale who had his bug there. This show is not your ordinary one day show, this show lasted for three days (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). We found Dale’s bug before we found him and had to check that fine looking car out. There were two other bugs in the show. A vert and a Super Beetle. There were some beautiful classic cars in this show. Some that you normally don’t see anywhere, else. One was a 1940 Oldsmobille that was one of two in existence! The other car that caught my eye was an old Packard that had a collector plate on it with the number 79. That’s right 79. Now, my collector plate is in the 10, 000 range so you do the math. This car was just beautiful and the owner had taken the time to store it and preserve it properly. We eventually met up with Dale and his wife, Gail. Very nice folks and Dale was helping the Lion’s Club with the car show but was nice enough to take time to talk with us. We had a nice time talking with Dale and some of the other folks at the show. Since it was past lunchtime and we hadn’t eaten anything since the morning, we decided we should go find someplace to eat and perhaps check out some of the craft fair. So the rest of afternoon, we wandered around main street of Sister Bay and enjoyed the festivities.

Eventually, the early morning began to catch up with us and we were getting tired so we headed towards the Baileys Bluff Campgrounds where we would be staying that night. The other folks on the cruise had gone their separate ways and so Nick and I got to have a night of camping by ourselves. Something we haven’t done in years. We set up camp which takes about 5 minutes with a Westy and built a campfire. That bottle of Hallowine had been chilling on ice all afternoon so we popped the cork. The campground was pretty quiet which was kind of nice for a change. If any of you camp, you know that in the Summer, campgrounds can get pretty busy and noisy. We saw about 15 flocks of Canadian Geese flying overhead, before and after dusk. The evening was nice until about 9 pm, when a wind picked up and then there was a slight chill in the air. We had the campfire to chase it away, though. Went inside the bus , sat in the top bunk and watched the campfire die out. We turned in shortly after that, but we stayed comfortable with our gas heater (a very safe, modern gas heater) going in the Westy.

Woke up feeling great in the morning and hungry. Packed up camp in 10 minutes (we’ve got it down to a science after many years of camping). Made our way to the Florian 2 in Bailey’s Harbor for the breakfast buffet. On our way to the restaurant, we saw a 68 or 69 bus sitting in a driveway off to the side. It looked to be in good shape and looked like it was recently parked. I stopped and put one of the club flyers and my card on it. The Florian 2 is a very nice restaurant with a magnificent view of the shoreline. The breakfast buffet offered something for everyone. I enjoyed the fresh fruit and blueberry muffins, while Nick enjoyed the more typical breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, and potato pancakes. With the Packer game at 3:00 pm, we decided we had better get on the road and at least try to get around Green Bay before noon. We did make one stop at the Door Pennisula Winery to pick up some more Hallowine and to try some of their other wines. They have tours there as well, but we didn’t take the tour.

Traffic wasn’t bad today, either. We saw a baby blue colored bug between Sturgeon Bay and Brussels. Of course, we waved madly at each other. The rest of our trip was pretty much uneventful. I hope that everyone had an enjoyable time on the cruise and that we can do it again next year.

Sherri

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