Door County Anniversary Trip, Day 7

Day 7: Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Today was our last full day in Door County, and we were determined to make the most of it! With highs in the 70’s and beautiful clear skies, we rose early and headed to Sister Bay to start our day.

We went back to Al Johnson’s for breakfast – we needed one more serving of those amazing Swedish pancakes!

Saying hello to the goats on the roof one last time…and yes, that’s a lawn mower up there. We watched a guy mowing the grass on the roof later on as we were driving by! I guess the goats aren’t doing their job right.

While planning our vacation, we thought it would be fun to try kayaking together. But after seeing the big waves of Lake Michigan every other day, we were hesitant to go out on a tiny little boat. We stopped by the kayak rental place, and the guy there said it was the perfect day for it though – it was a sign, we were supposed to go today! We rented a 2 person kayak from Bay Shore Outfitters in Sister Bay, and set off on the lake.

Our first stop was to go by the cliffs and caves of Peninsula State Park. We had of course visited here on Saturday, and it was fun to see it from another angle.

This was both of our first kayaking experience! We’ve done lots of canoeing, but never kayaking. We love being able to experience these firsts together. 🙂 The lake really was perfect today. The only waves we faced were caused by other boats. We started off early enough that there were hardly any other boats out yet.

It took about a half hour to go from where we started to Peninsula State Park, across the bay. We decided to get out and check out the caves here. There was also a trail that went through this area – we enjoyed getting to walk on it without having to hike up the tall bluff!

After that, we kayaked to Horseshoe Island, one we had seen from afar on a few other occasions. We got out and decided to take the 1K trail that circled the island. As we arrived, others were leaving, and there was a boat nearby fishing, but while we hiked we had the whole island to ourselves.

It was here that we saw our 3rd bald eagle! (Or our 3rd sighting of the same one…who knows?)

We circled back to the kayak and headed back for Sister Bay. The entire trip took just 2 ½ hours, and the rental place was kind enough to charge us for just 2 hours. We were so glad we were able to do this today – the next day as we were leaving, we saw the waves were much higher, and we knew God provided the perfect day for us! What’s weird is that while I did significantly less paddling than Curtis, I still ended up being the only one who was sore the next day. Not sure how that happened!

We had asked a lady at the tourist booth in Ellison Bay where the best place to get ice cream was, and her answer was Not Licked Yet Frozen Custard in Ephraim. So we drove a little further South to get a sundae to help cool off after our “workout”. We had a Door County Cherry sundae…When in Door County, we had “Door County Cherry” flavored everything!

We stopped at Seaquist Orchard on the way back to Ellison Bay. There were so many things to sample there, we just called that our lunch for the day! I just snapped a picture of the orchard as we drove away.

At this point, it was only 3 in the afternoon, so we found another letterboxing hike we could do for the afternoon. It was getting to be hot, humid, and buggy, but we stuck it out and enjoyed the walk. It was a little bittersweet knowing it was our last hike here…and together for a little while.

After the hike, we went home and cleaned up to go to dinner. We went to Grasse’s Grill in Sister Bay. We don’t usually drink when at restaurants, but this was our honorary 2nd anniversary dinner date to make up for the one we won’t get in July. I had a Door County Cherry Mimosa (because when in Door County, always go for the cherry!) and Curtis had a chocolate beer. They were both great, and together tasted like a chocolate covered cherry. 🙂

We went and enjoyed our last sunset at Ellison Bluff. Here, we also saw our 4th and last bald eagle. A great way to wrap up a wonderful vacation!

Day 7 Wrap Up: Hiked 4 miles, Kayaked 2.5 hours (not sure how to measure that in miles??) Found 5 letterboxes, saw 2 bald eagles.