Yesterday started off with a trip down to Sturgeon Bay to an urgent-care facility where Jim got a prescription for antibiotics for an infected wound on his foot. He had an altercation with a door frame about a week ago in which his foot definitely came out the loser.
On our way back from Sturgeon Bay we went over to Whitefish Dunes State Park. Fortunately we stopped first at the tiny village of Whitefish Bay just to see the view. It turned out to be the best place from which to see the dunes.
Whitefish Dunes
These dunes are a big deal for this peninsula which, as far as we can tell, has no other dunes. But compared to the Grand Sable Dunes on the U.P. and Sleeping Bear Dunes on the east coast of Lake Michigan, these are babies.
Whitefish Dunes beach
The state park's beach is small but lots of people were enjoying the water which was extremely calm, barely lapping at the sand. Not a wave to be seen anywhere.
We intended to see Cave Point Park which is a few miles up the shore but it was so crowded there wasn't a parking place to be had. We'll try again on Monday when the weekenders have departed.
Today we headed over to Egg Harbor to check it out. We knew there was a fire somewhere after seeing a number of fire trucks go flying past from Baileys Harbor's fire department....perhaps even all their trucks. When we got to Egg Harbor we couldn't get where we wanted to go because the roads were closed. We had stumbled across the fire.
Shipwrecked Brew Pub on fire
This picture is from Facebook, taken four hours before we got there and even before the fire trucks arrived. The cause is thought to be an air conditioner on the second floor which caught fire. The section of the building where the fire started was built in 1882. Shipwrecked is an Egg Harbor landmark. Its demise is very sad for the village and the owners who have been there for twenty years.
Ladder truck with firemen at work over the still-smoking roof
Fortunately no one was hurt, although there were firemen who suffered from dehydration, smoke and heat and were taken off by ambulance.
Pumpers drawing water from the bay
Being on the edge of Green Bay right at the marina gave the fire fighters an unlimited supply of easily accessible water.
Fire departments from nearly every village on the upper peninsula sent trucks and firemen. The furthest we saw was one from 50 miles away, almost down to the city of Green Bay. When we got back to Baileys Harbor and drove by their fire department there were trucks from another village 52 miles away which we guessed had been sent to cover this area while the Baileys Harbor department was fighting the fire. We noticed one of the towns closest to Egg Harbor had no trucks at the fire so they were probably covering for everyone else.
Copper Whirligig
The little park next to the marina had three stunning copper whirligigs spinning in the breeze. This was the most amazing of the group.
Speaking of breeze, it was very lucky there was no wind this morning when the fire was blazing or it might have spread to other structures. As it was, the only damage was to the single building which was a total loss. The fire did cause the power to be turned off to all the neighboring shops which ruined one of their valuable weekend days. Unfortunately, this also included a shop we were headed to.
We did get to see a little more of Egg Harbor than the fire area. The rest of the area is very picturesque with an assortment of houses ranging from middle-class to very wealthy. Some of the boats in the marina were whoppers, one of the most expensive of which was registered in Cape Coral, Florida. It either lives here year-round or needs a tractor-trailer to haul it back to Florida for the winter.
Egg Harbor public beach
We think the beach must have been pretty busy because there were very few parking spots left. People at East Coast beaches would love to have "crowds" like this one.
Enough horsepower?
Limestone cliffs....what this peninsula consists of
On the way back to Baileys Harbor we detoured over to Cana Island to find the lighthouse. We had no idea we wouldn't be able to get to it.
Cana Island causeway......no lighthouse
The lighthouse is on the back side of the island and hidden by the trees. We've seen pictures of it so thought it we could walk to where it would be visible. However, the causeway which runs from where we were standing over to the island was hip-deep in water with waves coming across it from both sides. No lighthouse for us today, but we enjoyed the waves which really made it look like the ocean.
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