Bayshore Bluffs

Door County is a peninsula that juts up into Lake Michigan from the city of Green Bay at its base. We proved you can drive in and out in a day especially as Highway 57 into the county is a four lane expressway. That road is in some ways symbolic of how Door County struck me, you can make a fast dive in and out  with no requirement to meander and view the beauty.  This place is where everyone will direct you if you ask: "What should I see in Wisconsin?" I knew a blogger a decade ago who worked as a landscaper in Door County until gentrification and bitter isolated winters sent her to the city and off her blog. So I can say I had heard of Door County but beyond that...And you know what? There are people - and I'm not joking here - who have never heard of the Keys. 

Door County is a wild amalgam of gentrified coastline with expensive homes right down to the water but inside that ring of summer home money lies a gentle peaceful rural swath of farmland that looks and feels no different from mainland Wisconsin. I was quite surprised to see agriculture in full bloom, proper well kept farms,  right alongside the self absorbed holiday maker's paradise. It was as though there were still a working dairy farm in Key West somewhere between Flagler Avenue and North Roosevelt. Sears put paid to that but Door County has preserved farmland. And it turns out a small strip or two of parkland. We found this one:

I left my wife to her watercolors and set off on an 85 degree day to check out this piece of wilderness with -who else?- Himself.  I have no idea what these plants are called and there was no Verizon cell service (hence the prolonged radio silence on this page) to look up a Field Guide to the Flowers of Door County, if one exists. Anyway I took some pictures as souvenirs, not as explanations of where we found ourselves.

This place is weird I tell you. I saw flies acting like honeybees looking for pollen in the flowers. 

I saw no alligators but I did have a large beetle fall out of a tree right in front of me, buzzing angrily as it lay on it's back as though drunk. Finally it righted itself exposing a crazy silver back and flew off angrily.

The whole place felt like Alice Through The Looking Glass.

I confess I thoroughly enjoyed the deciduous forest, with all those bright green leaves, shifting shadows and sparkling sunlight. Mangroves were far from my mind. I am so fickle.

Herself was enjoying the van on her own meditating with watercolors, and though the Internet was a remote memory Verzon still worked well enough to send texts so I knew Rusty and I were off the leash as we started to climb the actual bluffs.

I got quite caught up in photographing miniature purple foxgloves. Another Wisconsin oddity.

The posted a useful map and I determined we should follow the longest yellow line up the hill and onto the plateau above where there is apparently another parking lot.

Three nice people from Chicago passed me by as I waved my camera about and they dutifully put on masks even as we distanced ourselves. Luckily they were gone as they were elderly nice people who might not have enjoyed seeing a sweet friendly dog turn into an alligator after they disappeared.

I only started to sweat when we climbed the hill as my cardio exercise is mostly of the flatland type but Rusty thought it was warm enough to indulge in his favorite transgression: getting covered in rich black mud.

It wasn't exactly Everest but I plodded manfully up like the Flatland Floridian I am and he left me far behind hopping like a rabbit with no effort at all.

I found a spider doing its job so in honor of all the box spiders I left behind at home tangling up my mangrove trails I recorded this fiend settling in to an early lunch:

I reached the top of the hill and walked the flat part of the trail catching my breath, my broken pelvis gives me no trouble at all these days. But Rusty denied he didn't care for whatever view there might be, enticingly close but too far away to interest him. He did that stubborn thing he does so well and sat on the trail staring at my back until I turned around and yielded with as much good grace as I could muster which was not much.  The trail still looked lovely on the way back.  

This time two more people who had parked at the top lot came by, distanced as well as masked as we passed like a trio of bandits meeting in the woods. They asked me for directions to the bluffs which was a bit of a laugh but apparently they wanted to walk all the way from lot to lot first for we saw them later across the meadow.

There they were, no camera or dog to impede their progress, crossing the lovely meadow towards Layne in the van.

I had to stop for this, especially as the butterfly cooperated by sitting still in a rather unimaginative pose, but very decently opened its wings for me. All orange butterflies are monarchs to me unless proved otherwise...

A tree in wildflowers:

Queen Anne's lace maybe?

Ding Door County the right way:

The artist in her lair:

Van life as she is actually lived:

Then we drove back to Sturgeon Bay and took off for the other side of Door County.

Sturgeon Bay is in the middle of the peninsula where it is cut in two by two fiords that meet at the bridge in the middle of town. There is another road bridge but much less picturesque:

They sail sailboats around here even though the water is fresh and has no swells and no tides. The Great Lakes are actually fearsome places to sail if you do it wrong as weather changes rapidly and short sharp wind waves make life difficult I have been told. Lakes are not the ocean but they have their issues.

Many states and two countries share the coastlines here so it should not be surprising that the US Coastguard is well regarded by the locals.

Classic downtown small town mid western town Sturgeon Bay, lovely under bright sunshine. We noticed many local businesses in places like this, flanked of course by some notable chain stores but local business seems to be thriving here in a way Key West can only envy.

They even have a Tropic Cinema equivalent which they claim is the Wisconsin crown jewel of theaters. I hope t thrives after coronavirus.

There's not much more to say about this fascinating peninsula except to hope that after the virus they pick up as before. For us, no masks no social distancing and no care at all about coronavirus precautions meant we couldn't enjoy any of the many attractions. The irony of course is there are many things to see and they were out of our reach. I'd like to think they will get away with it but I fear there is an awful reckoning to come as coronavirus is bound to spread out of control here as it did in Florida when the Sunshine State ignored the implications.

Wisconsin Is Weird

Some of the stuff in Wisconsin  is weirdly beautiful and some of it is rather unfortunate, and I still don't exactly know what is meant by "summer sausage" or "supper club" but neither is as risqué as they sound I suspect.

For some reason I find myself approaching these kinds of situations feeling a bit like a rube out of the mangroves. I've lived in the Keys for so long I see these classic farmland scenes and they look more like a movie than the real thing. I think visitors to the keys get the same effect in reverse; we live in the same country yet we are worlds apart. Had you been riding in Gannet 2 on our way to the notorious Door County, tourist capital of Wisconsin we are told, you would have heard us pointing out banalities like wide open fields:

To get to Door County from Chicago we droned up the freeway and spent a night in a rest area, our favorite free quick efficient overnight stopping place. Our van is well insulated enough we don't hear any engine noise from vehicles or trucks coming and going and we are small enough we can park in the car section far from the rumbling commercial trucks. We drove until dark and the sunset off to our left was a portent it seemed of things to come. My wife the passenger couldn't tear her eyes away as the sun set so slowly at these north latitudes the dusk crept up on us so gradually...and is disappeared it left behind all the colors of the sunset which ended finally in a deep dark blue band of sky. The last of the light turned the trees and silos into a stage set silhoette between the freeway and the horizon. And just for extra effect the waxing crescent moon hung low over the fields as daylight disappeared completely. It was extraordinary.

The next morning we got up slowly and washed ourselves with those very useful body wipes of the type you use after a hurricane when water is in short supply. Walking Rusty I noticed an old school bus with the engine compartment propped open with a stick and parents and children gathered by the picnic table. Naturally coronavirus precludes casual encounters which is as frustrating on the road as it is at home, so I never learned their story but just as in sailing I find land bound traveling families worthy of respect and they usually have excellent and funny campfire stories. Worrying about my dog is as much as I can manage easily, children are way beyond my capacity to cope with.  I took this picture of the bus on our night walk circumambulating the rest area.

As we pulled out of the rest stop when the sun was well up and I was sipping tea brewed in my own mobile home I looked over and saw a young man squatting in the grass in the shade of a tree. Even in profile I could see he was young and fashionably bearded. He leaned forward in an attitude of prayer on his knees and projectile vomited into the grass. My wife muttered "hung over" but Occam's Razor in a time of pandemic proffered coronavirus as a likely cause. Either way that image gave us pause, it came as though a warning of things to come. Indeed our whole journey across Wisconsin till we accidentally found ourselves in masked, social distancing Michigan gained the floor of time travel. We came from the future, a place where we once had very few cases and an excessively casual relationship with the virus. I fear Wisconsin has a terrible future ahead as the state seems to have no collective idea how to manage the infection and take precautions. Just as Florida seemed to have no will to limit social contact a few short weeks ago. I remember pictures of crowded beaches and bars and I looked at the small vacation towns we drove through and I felt like I was watching the unsuspecting victims of a horror movie.

Layne has been locked at home pretty much since March 15th and here suddenly we found ourselves in a time before coronavirus. Lockdown? Social Distancing?

Crowds, mask-free staff waiting tables pushed together, public socializing without a care in the world. It was a wrench and reminded us how much we miss stopping and checking the places, the curiosities and roadside attractions on these road trips.

Wisconsin is full of things to see, breweries, wineries, distilleries, cider makers, farms, cheese factories and I don't know what. But every time we stopped to give it a go we found crowds, no masks and no chance of us blowing our long standing isolation to taste or participate. I very much want to come back and see it properly, after the virus. It is lovely.

Roadside stop where we spent the night near Bowler, Wisconsin.

He's getting used to it:

No I did not envy him, I rather enjoy floating along in the van with my things and my family.

Wisconsin is irresistible. Lots of winding roads and huge forests.

Lakes far too cold for the likes of us filled with people having fun.

Yes, Land O'Lakes Butter has actual farmer-owners in Door County. Who Knew?

From Lynn To Webb

Once we decided to head toward Wisconsin it was obvious we had some people to see in Chicago along the way. Layne's cousin Lynn actually became the source of some controversy as my wife insisted I had not seen her "new home" in the Chicago suburbs. I thought I had. We proceeded due north only to discover I was right and Layne was wrong. I had been here before and the new house had been occupied seven years and I scored heavily in the bragging rights department. In my defense it was a lot of hours of looking at cornfields and watching 18 wheelers pass us by that led to my taking a bet against my wife in the first place.

Driving a van as a means of conveyance is new to me so I felt rather out of place in a 72 square foot mobile home amidst the suburban splendor. After an evening of much family chatter and dare I say whisky tasting I got up the next morning to do my duty by Rusty.  He happily sniffed every trunk and every flowerbed in this lush neighborhood while I trailed along wondering why it reminded me so much of my childhood. I grew up at least in part in southern England where summer brings explosive green growth, just like these upper tier states. I walked Rusty through my childhood. It was excellent.

I guess I haven't been paying attention like I should but apparently under cover of political protest people have been stealing from box stores around the Windy City and so once again we face the prospect of more law and order posturing sets the newspapers to creating headlines.  Golly one feels so far away when on vacation. I should do this more often.  I remember when President Clinton bombed Serbia in the Balkan War I was busy sailing Central America and had no notion of what was going on in the outside world. Impeachment? Kosovo? Never heard of them... that must be another reason van life seems so appealing!

Lynn has fine taste in neighborhoods and we enjoyed our walk leaving the Tribune's fulminations to some other lucky reader. I'm on vacation.

I was certain I had visited here previously when Rusty and I happened on the duck pond, serene as a mirror and lined with what appeared to my nostalgic eye to be weeping willows.

At this stage in our journey to Lake Superior and back Rusty was viewing life on the road with a somewhat jaundiced eye and sure enough the van was still waiting in the driveway when we got back. Breakfast, eggs and lox and bagels as only Jewish cousins can enjoy, strong coffee to fortify us for the road and distanced farewells. We have discovered lots of reasons to come back to these northern parts and Lynn still remains the strongest draw. It's odd how some people make you feel like you should never leave and Rusty was of that opinion clearly stated. He had to be coaxed out of the house into the torture machine.

Next stop Evanston where I miraculously found an open parking space and stunned Layne and Webb by parallel parking Gannet 2 in a spot across the street from Webb's apartment.

Once you've sailed round the world half a dozen times and set a few records a van need not necessarily be considered anything close to a boat but Webb was very nice about it on his page.  We left Layne to household chores and took Rusty to the lake  which is a few blocks away.

Rusty was embarrassingly interested in every blade of grass and every tree trunk on the way out. He doesn't mark them so much as just pause to sniff them all which required Webb Chiles, a noted long legged walker to slow down a bit but he seem pleased to pit up with a lot from me. We talked of future travel plans and past travel adventures and in an odd way Webb managed to see the van for what it is: a vehicle for adventure and he sees the boat related similarities. I find it reassuring.

He gave Gannet 2 a close once over and of all the people who have enquired about our living arrangements he was the one to ask how many tanks we carry our 35 gallon water supply in...on a boat that is a critical requirement in case one tank splits, but we fortunately can stay simple with one big tank and should we spring. leak we will I hope be close to a supermarket for emergency supplies. We will I should point out, be carrying a water purifier as used by backpackers to render lakes and streams potable. I like to describe myself as an unarmed prepper, though I never expected my camper van to become a coronavirus bubble. The world's an unpredictable place.

From this point, watching Webb recede in the rear view mirror we were casting off from the known world and heading north into unknown territory with no friends, no kith nor kin down the road ahead of us.

Living Large

You have heard that tiresome joke about not being in Kansas anymore? Well some days its just the right thing to say and arriving back at the house Rusty avoided the van in the driveway and ran straight to the front door. Indeed we are not in the van anymore....

My wife has a cousin Lynn who with her husband Bob live in the eastern suburbs of the Windy City and arriving here after an absence of too many years was a priority of the trip, the van shake up cruise. My wife, the mistress of the malapropism described our first shake down cruise in our new boat as a shake up cruise many years ago. As that first weekend away was on San Francisco Bay a notoriously windy proving ground, "shake up" was he exact right description and it has stuck as we learn to live in 72 square feet with a dog who prefers the comforts of home.

It was a long, and I am forced to admit rather dreary drive across the plains of Indiana, which chose to exhibit itself per stereotype, down to the waving fields of corn and a dead straight dead flat Interstate 65 filled to capacity with 18 wheelers, and one Golden Van. Actually driving the Promaster is a lot easier than  writing about it. One sits high enough off the ground to be able to see a long way over the roofs of sedans and high enough indeed to look into the laps of passing truckers, not a view I would recommend nor encourage but to the van driver like myself, a former truck driver, the view is now available. 

Indiana also sprouts a large number of roadway windmills turning languidly under the roasting midwestern sun and we drove through heavy thunderstorms followed by gray skies and periods of bright sunshine in 94 degrees. I much appreciated the powerful air conditioner keeping me in a sweat free bubble inside the van. Setting cruise control at a blistering 63 miles per hour it is easy to sit back and drive much slower than I would were I in the Ford Fusion which at 80 miles per hour gets twice the mileage of the Promaster at 70 mph (15 mpg versus 30mpg). There is something completely relaxing about cruising the slow lane a nice cup of home-brew (tea in my case your choice may vary) in one of the many cupholders listening to NPR on the box and Rusty snoring between the seats. Not actually snoring but laying down wondering when the noise will end. He also found the scenery new and interesting because he is my dog and curiosity is a required characteristic in my family.

In an effort to seek out a smidgen of the old days my wife looked up a cidery in Indianapolis of all places and we made a cautious reconnaissance. Mask, distant tables and not many patrons at two in the afternoon. We took the plunge. Rusty and I walked and Layne ordered a flight of her favorite alcohol. For Rusty and I the big city is a new experience and he was as fascinated as I by a group of young people huddling and then separating; what he thought I don't know but I suspected some relief from the tedium and downtrodden neighborhood changed hands in the alley. I rather missed Key West as we strolled past wrecked homes and trash and signs of gentrification even.

And our 21 foot van backs nicely into a car space. Front wheel drives means no transmission tunnel through the van making for a flat floor and a six foot wide body allows for a queen sized bed set sideways. Oh and front wheel drive gives the van a better turning circle than some sedans which combined with an expansive back up camera (useable while driving down the road incidentally) makes it easy to park around town. I used to drive eighteen wheelers in San Francisco for a living so my views may be biased by experience.

We penetrated Indianapolis for one reason: to taste Layne's favorite tipple, hard cider. We hoped for the best but were prepared to drive away were crowding masks or lack fo awareness an issue and of course they weren't. Masks everywhere, properly distanced tables with just a couple of customers mid afternoon and we tasted a flight of ciders, only after Rusty got his neighborhood walk, of course.

Our brief foray to the Ash/Elm Cidery was a bittersweet reminder of how much we are missing on this trip thanks to the limitations imposed by the coronavirus. It can't be helped that attractions and museums and points of interest are all closed and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't in the words of Rick in Casablanca "...amount to a hill of beans." And God knows the world has problems at the moment. But these limitations bring one back to earth after miles of innocuous, as normal driving. 

And so we went on, Up North to the day's goal, too far, too quickly but very necessary. Two people to visit  in as many days before we test our mettle in the Far North Woods of Wisconsin, we tackled the traffic and the lane changes demanded by Google maps to arrive at Lyn's place in the suburbs. 

We pulled up in a wooded leafy suburb and after Lynn told me the van was fine where it was I changed my order from lemonade to a glass of wine. We had arrived. Rusty was in no state of mind to refuse a comfortable spot on a thick pile carpet until it came to bedtime. Then he got other ideas about the best way to rest from an overly long road trip.

It wasn't long before I joined him and left the cousins to their natter.

Lunch Stop

Yesterday we drove across West Virginia through the woods along winding twisting turning backroads to find of all things a winery. It is Harvest Host participant which was how Layne found it, but we weren't spending the night. We had miles to cover to get to Chicago. 

The guy behind the counter wore his mask even while protected by the now usual plastic screen and we tasted some interesting wines by flipping our own masks up as needed. It's the new normal I suppose. The guy doing the pouring was as interesting as the grape tinted port he offered, going off on a. rant, totally unexpected about how the President has screwed everything up and we should have been wearing masks from the beginning and how the economy is suffering and so forth. We just stood there and sipped the conceptions and let him vent. We haven't seen tourist tags on vehicles and I'm forced to assume that the struggle to understand the virus and to adapt to it isn't doing anyone any good. There must be frustration everywhere even among the people we don't speak with. 

Isolation feels more like a privilege than ever. Especially on the road as we can limit our contacts as much or as little as we like. Our firsts top ended up being at the conversion factory in DeLand when a shelf came adrift by coincidence less than an hour from Custom Coach Creations as we traveled on I-95. That was a short unscheduled deviations hick set us back so we arrived late at my wife's sisters place near Asheville. The rest to hang out in the woods was welcome so we were rested when we set off on Monday to find Eric who lives slightly north of Richmond. We met through scooters and he has a garage filled with interesting rides.

We did some male binding adjusting the headlights on the van while Rusty sat outside in the sun reveling in the lawn that surrounds Eric's place. He and Lisa have four dogs which required some canine separation but we feasted on steak and corn and chocolate and so forth which called for more rest...

I got a quick ride on a rarity, a Benelli 135 mini bike which I expected would make me feel like a circus bear on a monocycle but it was shockingly fun ride. Eric went to Pennsylvania to get the bike and orders accessories from all over to make it a fun project for his inventive mind. You can follow his exploits on Kraken's Garage as he is diving into the world. of YouTube video productions.

With left over steak and chocolate pie in the fridge (how cool is that? our own fridge) we took to the hills. The Promaster 3500 is the biggest of the three variants of this van, an offshoot of the Fiat Ducato, and though all three types of Promaster share the same engine the 3500 has more powerful suspension to cope with the longer body and greater cargo carrying capacity. I try to stick close to 60 mph on the road to keep fuel consumption between 18 and 20 miles to the gallon, but it cruises happily at 70 mph and 15 mpg. On the usual angry online forums people complain about the engine and the seating and this that and the other but after 4200 miles and long days driving I find it a very capable vehicle on the road. To expect formula one performance from a fully Alden cargo van just seems stupid to me but we all know that internet anonymity brings out the stupid in the best of us. And some of the whiniest people seem to inhabit Promaster discussion boards. I have come to ignore them and just keep driving.

Rusty has been learning to adapt and as far as I can tell has no opinions about the van other than he likes to get out and explore new places as you might expect. Travel seems to exhaust the little tyke and he sleeps soundly in his bed which we set up behind the front seats for him to use whenever he wants a rest.

He doesn't mind at all being in a cooler climate, even though it is hot around here, and the unusual deciduous forests speak his curiosity. Thunder and lightning greeted us in Indiana  so a lunch pause was an exercise in curling up in bed listening to the rain on the roof and hoping the thunder would move further away. Like they say the van life is all about the weather, whether it rains or whether it doesn't and today the weather gods noticed I wasn't working so rain it is for the  crew of Gannet 2.