As summer winds down, there are many things I never got around to writing about. Probably the biggest oversight was not posting anything about our late June week in Door County, Wisconsin, arguably the best week of the summer for all in the RedPlanet household.
Just two years ago, in fairly different economic times, there was talk about how tourism was way down in Door County, with many involved in their tourism industry wistfully theorizing it was because the times had passed it by. No waterparks, no movie theaters other than the charming old fashioned drive-in, no mega-malls or chain stores or chain restaurants, no rollercoasters or video arcades or any of the other things today's modern quick-cut, low attention-span kids are thought to need to have fun. Instead it is quiet and old-fashioned and full of low-tech fun, with endless cherry orchards, charming shops, friendly people, sunsets, art galleries, Lake Michigan, lighthouses, antiques, boats, fish boils, and boundless natural beauty. Two years later, while tourism is still down, now for economic reasons, its slower pace and throw-back retro-vacation style couldn't seem more perfect.
How can kids be bored when there is an endless supply of rocks to throw into the water? Or at the Fyr-Bal Festival in Ephraim where summer is welcomed by the lighting of bonfires at dusk in a ring around beautiful Eagle Harbor followed by low-tech old-fashioned fireworks. Where there is an endless supply of fried-perch sandwiches, cheese curds and ice cream. Not to mention Al Johnson's Swedish restaurant with its goats grazing on the grass roof, cherry stands with every kind of cherry-themed food you can imagine, the fish boil at the White Gull Inn, where the boil-over sends flames shooting ten feet into the air, the car ferry to the desolate beauty of sparsely-settled Washington Island, the Ephraim town-hall sing-a-long, on and on. We read in hammocks, scrambled down the rocks to watch the waves crash against the rocks at Cave Point, played miniature golf on a course that, though well-kept, looks exactly like the ones we played when we were kids ($4 and a free prize for the kids!), watched "Up" snuggled all together in the van at the Skyway Drive-In, checked out the yachts tied up in the harbors, caught fireflys, and meandered through the Anderson Dock museum.
One of the coolest experiences we had was when we came out of a store to find a crowd of people gathered around a small lake. A Golden-Crested Merganser duck mother had shoved her seven two-day old ducklings out of their nest in a tree 75-feet above the lake and was manically flying in circles and squawking in an effort to get the ducklings to come out of the lake and follow her 100 yards across a lawn, busy street, and parking lot to Lake Michigan. They eventually got the idea and trotted in a little group across the lawn towards the Lake as the onlookers dashed into the street to hold traffic while they passed. They all made it safely to the Lake and swam off behind their mother out farther than we could even see.
Best of all was the time just to be. Drinking wine with our parents after the kids went to bed, playing cards, talking and laughing, golfing, and just reconnecting with myself and as a husband, dad, son, brother, Uncle and son-in-law with Deanna and the boys, my parents, my sister and her family, and my in-laws. Priceless.
You know you have squeezed the most out of a day when, as we approached the door of our house one night and suggested to our usually sleep-adverse boys that the last one to bed would be a rotten egg (a lame motivational tact that has almost never worked), Owen responded "the last one to bed is crazy." Here are a few pictures:
Bonfires dot the perimeter of Eagle Harbor during the Fyr-Bal Festival
Eating outside with my Mom, Dad (obstructed view), Sister Suzanne, Brother-In-Law Bill, and lots of kids
Owen at sunset
Me and the guys.
The twins throw rocks, practicing for their fall-back careers as professional protesters.
Owen, with cousins Kurt, Emma and Kirsten. And a hammock.
Hayden takes his beach going very seriously.
Deanna and her mom on the car ferry to Washington Island.
The guys and their cousins on the playground at the drive-in movie theater.
Ice Cream at Wilson's!
Surfs (not) up!
Mom and two-day old ducklings. 
Cooper after shooting the curl. 
