Tag: Peninsula State Park

Eating and Drinking in Door County

On November 24, 2020

Fish Creek from the Peninsula State Park

When planning our time in Door County, I found lighthouses, parks and outdoor recreation, restaurants, and lots of wineries. If you’ve read this blog before you should be familiar with our love of food and wine tourism. When we travel, we love to eat the local food and try the small local winery, even if they aren’t always great.

One thing that was interesting the learn is that most of the wineries in Door County use grapes from California or other parts of the country. Some of them are starting to grow their own grapes, but the production is not where they can make wine exclusively from estate-grown grapes.

Goat grazing on the roof at Al Johnson’s Swedish restaurant in Sister Bay.

We enjoyed most of the wines we tried in Door County and came home with more bottles when we expected to. Door Peninsula Winery was one of our favorites. They are the biggest wine producer in all of Wisconsin producing inexpensive, quality wines. The Door County Distillery is also on-site, producing spirits you can’t find anywhere else. Von Stiehl Winery was another one of our favorites. The oldest operating winery in Wisconsin, Von Stiehl was the last winery we visited in Wisconsin and the quality of the wines really outshined all the others.

After scouring TripAdvisor for where to eat in Door County, I settled on Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant (left). It’s not often you encounter Swedish Food outside of the IKEA cafe so I was excited to give it a try. One thing that surprised me when we got to the restaurant was the goats grazing on the grass roof. That was unlike anything I had ever seen before for sure. When we got home, we discovered you can watch the goats from the comfort of your home from Al Johnson’s goat cam. The goats are not on the roof in winter, so be sure to bookmark that page and check it out in May when they come back for the season.

Thanks for stopping by! To read more about this trip, check out the Great Lakes – Great Summer Road Trip Report. To read about some of our previous trips, click here. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.

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Wordless Wednesday: Green Bay Sunset

By Ashleigh

On November 11, 2020

In Wordless Wednesday

Peninsula State Park

By Ashleigh

On November 9, 2020

In Camping, Hiking, Road Trip, Travel

Sunset from Peninsula State Park

Door County, Wisconsin has been on my list of places to visit since I first discovered it when I was in college. I quickly realized that from Michigan, its not the easiest place to get to and it got pushed to the back burner. But, this summer when we were planning to visit the far western end of the U.P., it finally made sense to visit Wisconsin’s peninsula in Lake Michigan.

The Door Peninsula is the easternmost part of Wisconsin and separates Green Bay from Lake Michigan. This is a very popular vacation destination for people from the Chicago area as well as other parts of Wisconsin. This area is home to several lighthouses, several historic sights, and plenty of freshwater for water sports.

When planning to camp in Door County, there are five state parks to choose from: Newport State Park, Peninsula State Park, Potawatomi State Park, Whitefish Dunes State Park, and Rock Island State Park. Rock Island State Park was closed this year due to high water levels. We were late to the game planning this trip and there was one spot open at Peninsula State Park so that made the decision pretty easy.

Peninsula State Park, located north of Fish Creek, is the most popular park in the Wisconsin State Park system. This is a huge park with over 460 campsites, a golf course, beach, lighthouse, and miles of trails to explore. This is a popular sunset viewing location. I loved watched the go down each night over Green Bay. I felt like the two nights we had to explore here where nowhere near enough.

The rustic campsites in the Tennison Bay campground were some of the nicest we have seen. The sites were wooded and very private and for the most part it was a quiet and calm campground. Even though 2020 was a big camping summer and the campground was full, it felt like we were the only people there.

The way the Wisconsin State Park service handled COVID left something to be desired. A few days before we arrived we received an email saying the bathrooms may or may not be open; showers may or may not be available. And the kicker, we had to buy an annual state park pass even though we were only going to be there two days (day passes are not sold this year). We were already several days into our trip at this point and considered completely changing our plans because of this. We are tent campers, we need bathrooms and I have no interest in carrying around a portable toilet. Luckily, when we got to the park, the bathrooms were open and clean, but there was not a single ranger to be found. So, I’m really glad I bought that annual pass that no one even looked at.

Overall, I would return to Peninsula State Park. There is still a lot of that park left to be explored. I just wish they I didn’t have to buy an expensive, out of state, annual park pass that I used for two days.

Thanks for stopping by! To read more about this trip, check out our Great Lakes – Great Summer Road Trip Report. To read about some of our previous trips, click here. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.

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