Potawatomi State Park

One of the many windy days lately we took a little drive around and ended up at Potawatomi State Park. It is on the south side of Sturgeon Bay. We were standing out on a fishing pier taking this picture out into the Sturgeon Bay channel that flows out into the waters of Green Bay in the background.

The brown trout and even some salmon are coming into the channel itself. You don't have to fish way out in the lake to catch them. These fish are coming into the shallow harbors and channels this time of year.

Fall colors are not very good yet. I'm not sure if they will be good this fall with it continuing to rain so much. We have three weeks left here --- getting "hitch itch"-- that is --itchy to hitch up and move out. Although we are busy hitting our favorite eating spots one last time.

Septemberrrrrrrr

I didn't have any adventures to report this week so I'm showing the picture of the U.S.S. Badger car ferry. This is the ship we watched dock in Manitowoc.

It's started to get very cool here -- no fishing for us. Jim took the boat in to get the motor tuned up. They wanted to winterize it for us but we said no thanks we don't need that done. We're heading south in less than a month!

Life on the road takes some planning. I am cramming in my doctor and dental appointments while here in door county. Also, getting haircuts done before leaving is important. Once we hit the road this time we will probably be moving every few days maybe staying as much as a week in some places until December.

We are planning to head to Memphis and then through Arkansas and then zig up to Chanute, Kansas for some warranty work on our 5th wheel trailer. After that -- at least at this point --we are planning to make our way over toward Yuma, Arizona unless some fabulous winter job pops up.

Manitowoc

We took a day trip down to Manitowoc -- along the Lake Michigan shore. They have a great maritime museum with a World War II submarine that you can actually tour. This is a picture of the U.S.S. Cobia. It was so interesting to go down into an actual submarine. The small little cots the men slept on and the tiny lockers for their personal possessions -- they had to be pretty small guys. The cots were suspended over the torpedos. The head (toilet) was a very complicated gadget to operate. There were about 12 steps involved in using/flushing it properly.

The tour guide did a good job of describing the heat -- in the 90's down there and the deafening noise of the engines and how thick the air would get if they couldn't surface and replenish it.

The museum had a few full size yachts and smaller sailing vessels as well as incredibly detailed miniatures of ore boats, steamships, paddleboats, etc.

We also saw the U.S. S. Badger come into dock. It is one of the few car ferries left on Lake Michigan. It transports people and vehicles from Manitowoc, Wi across Lake Michigan to Ludington, Mi. It takes about 4 hours to cross the lake. It is a huge ship and we could take our whole rig on it -no problem-- just a little expensive. Many people use it to avoid going through Chicago to get over to Michigan. Maybe we will take it sometime!

Wind & Waves

We went out fishing one day trolling the coastline south of Sturgeon Bay -- over half way to Green Bay. We didn't have any luck because fishing has slowed down with the cold fronts and wind.

Jim took this picture over on the Lake Michigan side of Door county peninsula on a typical windy day here. The waves were 7 and 8 footers. It was perfectly sunny a few miles inland but here the fog, haze, mist rolled in along the shoreline. The wind somehow whips it up and blows it ashore.

Labor Day weekend at the campground was very busy even though we had 4 inches of rain between Wednesday and Thursday. The boat was sitting in a newly created lake and almost started to float in the field where we store it. It was a miracle that by Friday afternoon most of the water had soaked into the ground. The ground here is a thin layer of soil covering a very porous limestone rock so it filters through pretty quickly.

Leaves are starting to change, fall is in the air and we are getting the itch to head south. We will stay here until around the 13th of October and then make a beeline south.