Death's Door Rafting Adventure

Yesterday morning this grackle was sitting in the tree by our hotel balcony.

Travalon and I went to get coffee in downtown Sturgeon Bay, but first we stopped into an antiques store, and I got a couple of rosaries. We sat on the patio behind the coffee place, and there was a lovely zinnia in bloom.

We parked right near this beautiful clock.

St. Joseph's is the Catholic church in town, and it's on the banners they put on light posts.

We went to a county park across from an old quarry, and Travalon fished. I tried to pray one of my new "rosaries" only to discover it is just a necklace, so I prayed with this one. Each Hail Mary bead has a tiny blue statue of Mary in it, and the heart-shaped Our Father beads have a blue bust of Mary in them.

Here are some pictures from the park, I think it was called Pinney County Park.

We did stop at this cute antiques store on our way to the north part of the peninsula. No rosaries, but I found a Scrabble purse, so Travalon got it for his mother because she loves Scrabble.

We went to Ellison Bluff County Park and went to the beautiful overlook.

Then we took a hike in the woods. This yellow lady slipper must have been beautiful about a week ago, but now it's past its prime.

This trillium is purple for some reason, and it has four leaves instead of three. The remainder from the flower looks like the flower would also have had four petals, but that photo was out of focus. So this is a true quadrillium!

Here we are, happy to be in the woods.

Our next stop was Newport State Park, where we went to the beach and floated on our rafts. Here is a picture of the park.

We drove to Door Bluff County Park, but we couldn't find a trail to the overlook, and it was getting close to the time to catch our raft for our Death's Door adventure, so we just drove to the place where we were supposed to meet the raft. There was this interesting statue right where we parked.

We love being on boats as much as being in the woods!

The raft was one of those inflatable Zodiac rafts, and there were nine people on it. We rafted by Door Bluff, which was far more interesting from the water.

We passed lots of beautiful shoreline.

Our guide showed us some Native American petroglyphs.

We stopped at Pilot Island, a small island with an abandoned lighthouse which is now a bird sanctuary. I always say how I love "bird parties," which are big gatherings of birds, usually with several species. A pond near our house often has ducks, geese, and cranes on it, but Pilot Island was the ultimate Bird Party. We saw gulls, pelicans, and cormorants.

Then we went to Plum Island, which was misspelled on the map because it should be Plumb Island, since it is plumb in the middle of the Death's Door passage. We saw the old Coast Guard station with one of the few remaining Duluth-style rescue houses.

We saw the wreckage of the Grapeshot, a ship that went down in the 19th century.

We also saw the lighthouse, which is a particular kind where you line up the light here and one further inland on the island to make sure you are on course.

Then we went to Gilbert Bay and saw another 19th century shipwreck, the Fleetwing.

On our way back, we saw a couple of gulls chasing a bald eagle. This is the best shot I got of it.

Then we drove to Ephraim and had dinner at a wonderful restaurant called the Chef's Hat. We sat outside, and Travalon enjoyed a tropical drink.

Then I talked to Tiffy, as I always do on Friday nights, and Travalon and I relaxed in our hot tub, so I didn't blog last night. I went to bed sort of on time and blogged first thing this morning.

Famous Hat