~Saturday, August 7, 2021~
Day 419
As the days have gone on here, our power for the trailer is continuing to drop (down to 65%) due to the lack of sunshine getting to our solar panels. I think we have the most shaded site in our campground loop. Note to self: If you know you’ll be relying on solar power for more than a few days, be mindful that fewer trees might be better, especially in places that could potentially have rain.
We had heard about Whitefish Dunes State Park so decided to take a drive there today, with Sadie. It was about a 30-minute drive to the highlight of Whitefish….Cave Point County Park. It reminded us a little of Big Bay State Park on Madeline Island, that we recently visited. Once again, beautiful underwater caves (gosh it would be fun to kayak those), hiking trails and limestone cliffs. We would have loved to see a BLUE Lake Michigan today but the clouds had something else in mind. Kind of a gloomy day. Sadie had a ball finding the perfect stick to chase in and outside the water. We took a short hike in a Beech/Maple forest to the point itself with little side hikes off of the main trail. The trail had some challenges with not being very well maintained (tree roots everywhere),
but nice as it followed the lakeshore with amazing views and the peaceful sounds of water splashing up onto the beaches. Definitely a leisure stroll as we prefer something a little more challenging. But, boy does it attract a lot of visitors….around 400,000/year. As we were making our way back to the car, we overheard someone mention to check out Peninsula State Park which was only about 20 minutes further, so we decided to check it out and we’re so glad we did. Not only was Peninsula State Park gorgeous. But along the way, there were a myriad of charming village-like communities that we had to drive through to get there.…..Ephraim, Gibraltar, Egg Harbor and Jacksonport, all part of Door County. Jeff always had Door County on his radar of regions to visit in Wisconsin. Basically, if you’re going to be in Wisconsin, that’s the county you should not miss. Now we see what the fuss is all about.
Peninsula State Park is very cool. It features a recently constructed 850-foot ramp
through a canopy of trees leading you to an observation tower which rises from Eagle Bluff (one of the highest points in Door County). It kind of reminded us of the towers at waterparks. From there you get a 360-degree view of the bay and peninsula. We’d never seen anything quite like it, but because of the uncooperative weather, we wouldn’t have seen any views from the top anyway today. So we’ll have to come back another time to experience the ramp.
The state park also has a campground…..Nicolet Bay North and Nicolet Bay South, with South being the more favorable of the two. If we’re in any state park that has campgrounds, we always check them out for future stays and the list keeps growing. A few months back when we were planning this leg of the trip, we looked into booking at Nicolet Bay, but it was full at the time. In the end, being at Potawatomi State Park has ended up being a better choice with far less crowds, bigger campsites and thus more privacy.