8/16 - Upper Door County

We visited the Peninsula and Newport state parks today which included driving all over the upper third of Door County. It's a beautiful place, naturally full of vacationers. There's just a single two-lane main road (which is in pretty bad shape) so the area can't handle a lot of traffic. Fortunately for us it wasn't too crowded. That might be different come the weekend. 


Peninsula State Park is on the Green Bay (west) side of the peninsula. There are some lovely views of the water from various stopping points on the road.

 Green Bay boats and Adventure Island to the left

Limestone bluffs stretching out into Green Bay

Numerous limestone bluffs line the coast so the views vary from beach-level to bluff-level. You can see bluffs sticking out in fingers from the shore way into the distance. Both these pictures were taken from bluffs. Beach-level views aren't quite as good.

Eagle Bluff Lighthouse with recovered anchor in front

The Eagle Bluff Lighthouse in the Peninsula State Park is still working after 149 years, but the light itself has changed dramatically. There's a 3 1/2 order Fresnel lens in the tower which no longer operates. The lighthouse is only about 40 feet tall but the land it sits on is 33 feet above water level so it's not as short as that sounds. Great Lakes' lighthouses are about half the height of seacoast lighthouses which average 150 feet.


In front of the lighthouse is a 1000-lb anchor which came from a 60-year-old schooner that sank near here in 1926. It's rather hard to see in the picture.

Eagle Bluff Lighthouse's new 5-watt LED light in cube on triangular shelf

Three weeks ago the Coast Guard installed a new light. The cube on top of the triangular shelf has a 5-watt LED bulb in it which won't need to be replaced for many years. The light from the bulb can be seen seven miles out in Green Bay.  


The different shape, color and/or markings of lighthouses are how mariners can tell where they are during the day. This tower is square. At night the location can be told from the timing of the flashing light.

Door County cherry orchards

Cherries grow well in this climate. We passed many acres of cherry trees on our way up to the tip of the peninsula. 

A picturesque building in Sister Bay  

The villages on the peninsula are very small. Looking at their names on a map gives the impression there is more to them. The west coast has seven named villages but we couldn't even find name signs for two of them let alone any buildings, and another two were so tiny that calling them villages was a stretch. The four named places on the east coast are even smaller. We don't yet know what our little village of Baileys Harbor has in it but we'll find out soon because we need a few groceries. We did see a Piggly Wiggly in Sister Bay, ten miles away, so we know we won't starve. We thought Piggly Wiggly was only in the South....we were very surprised to find one up here.

Lunch time?

This was a real treat to see.....two buildings with grass roofs and a work-crew of two goats on one of them keeping the grass trimmed. 


There's a 90% chance of rain tomorrow so our activities will be weather-driven. That means we won't figure out what we're doing until we get up.