Wisconsin, Vacationing in Wisconsin, and why I Heart Fall.

We took a weekend trip to Door County this weekend and I'm in love. Matt said some of the little lakefront towns reminded him of New England; I'm less familiar with New England, but they reminded me a bit of heaven. It was a perfect time to go--apparently the very last weekend of the tourist season, there were few people but a preponderance of splendid red-pink-orange-yellow trees. We are so lucky that Jeff Leach plays bridge with a lovely woman who happens to own a lovely condo in Ephraim, on the west coast of the peninsula. Here is the view from the back porch of the condo:



Sigh.

Door County Peninsula protrudes north (and a little east) from Wisconsin into Lake Michigan, and as such has little towns and harbors dotting its more than 300 miles of shoreline (little fact: this county has more shoreline than any other in the U.S.). Here's a map to help orient you, if you're at all interested in being oriented (Door County is the part in red).



As I mentioned before, we stayed in Ephraim, a village founded as a Moravian religious community in 1853. If you're like me, 'Moravian' means nothing to you--a little research taught me that it's a mainstream protestant denomination that apparently started in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) in the 14th century. Anyway, there are several historic buildings still standing in town, including a one-room schoolhouse and Moravian church dating from the mid-1800s, but other than that I'd say there are several small shops and restaurants and many very pretty lakefront homes, and not much else. Here are a couple pictures of the lake right across the street from where we stayed:





It was, as you can see, absolutely gorgeous. I nearly died the morning after we arrived, when I could see exactly what we had somehow fallen into. We drove into Bailey's Harbor on Saturday and then visited a kind of infamous little bar, the Blue Ox (probably only infamous to those who have heard Jeff's story of the Lawrence University pre-med Door County retreat--if you haven't heard this story, it's probably worth hearing at some point). Jeff, this picture is for you:



We later went wine tasting at Stone's Throw Winery, which had some very good wines, and then went in the afternoon to Fish Creek, a very touristy but very beautiful little town with a stunning harbor.





Vinny was Mr. Popular all day. I swear, in Fish Creek, every person who passed us stopped to exclaim how adorable he is (and he is adorable, so I don't blame them).



Aly was in charge of dinner and it was delectable. For me personally, she did portabella mushrooms with goat cheese in a balsamic reduction, and I was HAPPY. Much wine was also consumed and we slept very well in the quiet of a basically abandoned condo complex in a deciduous forest on the shore of Lake Michigan. As you can imagine, this suited Matt, who is still recovering from a week of intense exams. It also suited me, who had to deal with Matt while he was dealing with a week of intense exams.

On Sunday we went to breakfast, packed up, and left Ephraim. I wanted a quick stop in Egg Harbor, which we'd driven through on the way up, just for photos. It's breathtaking.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif



We drove home through the more rural areas of eastern Wisconsin and I must admit, I love those too. Wisconsin farms are different from California farms; they're greener, more old-fashioned; they seem as though they haven't changed in 100 years.



It was a wonderful weekend. On top of the fall colors, it was clear and in the high 60s and low 70s all weekend. Perfect weather. If you want to see all the pictures, go to my Picasa website.