Door County Winter Trip

To break in the minivan, we decided we had to take a trip somewhere.  We knew we weren’t ready for van camping yet, especially with it still winter and below freezing temps, so we booked a hotel just so we could get out and explore.  We set our destination to Door County in Wisconsin.  The weather was not particularly nice to explore with a 1 year old; was very chilly, windy, and overcast, so we did a lot of alternating with getting out at stops so that Kaylee could stay in the warmth of the van.  We pretty much did a loop around the whole peninsula checking out all the lighthouses including Bailey’s, Cana Island, Eagle Bluff, and state parks along the way.  We checked out Whitefish Dunes State Park, stopped in at Cave Point County Park, drove through Newport State Park to see what they had to offer as far as camping, and then made our way up to the tip to see where the ferry was to Washington Island (unfortunately not operating at the time but we did find a motorcycle buried in the snow).  Getting hungry, we set our sights on the Wild Tomato for some wood-grilled pizza.  We tootled around Peninsula State Park and as we were headed to the hotel, we spotted Lautenbach’s Orchard that had a sign for Mayberry’s horse drawn carriage rides so we flipped a u-turn hoping to catch a ride; however, we just missed the driver for the day.  On the bright side, they were still open for some wine tasting!  After the tasting, we headed to the hotel.  The next morning, we hoped to hit up Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant for some Swedish pancakes as it was recommended to us by a fellow overlander, but with the weather turning even worse, we decided to push our way south back towards home.  Luckily we did, because we later found out that we barely missed a 131-vehicle pile up on I-41.  It was probably the exact same place that we had gotten blown off the road due to the high winds and icy roads. We were thankful we switched out the slick run-flats for the BF Goodrich KO2s.  Once we felt we were in the clear with the weather and closer to home, we decided to stop in Menomonee Falls to see how it looked all frozen over and catch a bite to eat.  We stopped in Nino’s Italian Bakery & Deli and had some delicious sandwiches that came with a pickle and bag of chips and some yummy desserts.