More Lemonade

So while we have still more time on our hands, we either drive a borrowed car or ride our bikes around Door County to spread around some of our hard-earned Yankee greenback dollars.  And we finally made it back to the restaurant with the goats on the roof.

This area was settled by folks from Scandinavia, so there are a lot of last names that are hard to pronounce.  One guy named Al Johnson (not Scandinavian) started a restaurant to serve Swedish food (which IS Scandinavian).  As a gag, a friend (?) put a goat on the roof of his restaurant, and Al decided that it would be a good tourist draw.  So he now has a grass roof, tended by 4-5 goats.  (We’re not in Kansas any more, Toto.)  Oh, and the Swedish pancakes & Swedish meatballs are great!

 
 
 

 Speaking of food, at another restaurant we ate fried cheese curds as an appetizer.  Guess they have lots of cheese around here (as if we needed to be told about Wisconsin cheese!)  And of course, we’ve found several craft beer breweries in our travels, so the Admiral is happy.

 

 

 

As we see more of this Door County, we find that all the towns have a population of 300-800 year-round residents.  The numbers swell with summer tourists, who stop in a town to shop, walk up one side of the street and down the other, then drive on to the next town to repeat.  It is filled with restaurants, art & antique shops, and waterside “resorts” (small motels).  Now that we’re past Labor Day (the official end of summer in these parts of the woods), the towns are dead during the week, and jammed with tourists on weekends.

Another gorgeous sunset that we HAD to watch

And I guess the sunsets around here are the highlight of the day for some folks.  Last night, people were lined up all along the marina docks with cameras ready, sitting on blankets along the shore with their wine, and having sunset parties with their coolers and appetizers.  I’ll admit the setting looked nice, but some folks just have too much time on their hands.

Oh yes, I guess we still have a boat to repair.  On Thursday the boatyard loaned us their truck & trailer to drive 2-1/2 hours to Manitowac to pick up our brand new, shiny, 16-foot long Aquamet 19 prop shaft.  The yard was short on manpower, plus they offered to save us about $500 in transportation fees, if we picked up the shaft ourselves.  So Monday we haul the boat again to see how much fun it is to thread the 16’, 2” diameter, 300# shaft into the 1-15/16” hole in the boat.  I’m hoping it can be installed in 2 days, and then take only 2 more days to align & balance the drive train.  If all goes as planned, by the end of this week our checking account will be drained, our credit card maxxed out, and we will be able to leave Sister Bay.

Hey John, I think this Sister Bay Wisconsin has moved up to our most favorite place, even mo’ betta than Demopolis Alabama!