Amy's Creative Pursuits: A Weekend in Door County: Sturgeon Bay

This is the final post of a travel series of our anniversary getaway to Door County Wisconsin. To start at the beginning, go HERE.

On our last day in Door County the weather looked kinda iffy so we decided to stay in the Sturgeon Bay area close to our hotel. I was a bit nervous about the weather because the weekend before Door County had a horrific storm resulting in straight line winds, loss of power, water spurts, and even a tornado and the weather reports were scaring us with a "repeat this weekend". I didn't want to get trapped somewhere like the people on Cana Island did the weekend before.

But as what usually happens with weather-fear mongering it ended up being much ado about nothing (in Door County at least, but not in hometown as you will discover in a future post) and we actually had a very nice day for most of the day. It did drizzle a bit in the late afternoon and early evening, but not enough to ruin our plans.

We started our day with a visit to Potawatomi State Park. They had an observation tower we wanted to check out. This tower was closed for renovations for a while and recently reopened. They did a great job on renovating this tower, although I will say the steps were kinda steep.

You can hike to this tower on the Ice Age Tower Trail, but we did it the easy way and just drove to it and parked our car right underneath the tower. 😀

The views from the tower are stunning. We were especially enamored with the islands that had a house on it. Once again, we wondered who owns it, is it a vacation home or do they live there year round, and what do they do for a living? 😆

Here's a short video taken from the top of the observation tower.

Next we decided to check out downtown Sturgeon Bay and to our surprise they had a farmer's market. Apparently, they do this every Saturday, but I couldn't believe how busy it was and how many great vendors they had for a weekly event.

Here's a short video of me walking behind my husband through some of the farmer's market.

What I liked about downtown Sturgeon Bay verses some of the other towns in Door County, was that it is more of an actual city street so the shops are closer together and you don't have to walk as far to visit all the shops. In Sister Bay for example, you can't comfortably walk from one store to another as they are spread out far apart. And, parking is also difficult in Sister Bay, so you might have to park far away and then walk quite a distance back to get to the shopping/dining hotspots. In Sturgeon Bay because it is a bigger 'city' they have public parking lots in addition to street parking.

This was the only time I actually spent shopping in Door County, because it was so much easier to shop here. I ended up buying a beautiful necklace from Reclaimed & Co. Jewelry because I loved her story so much and I wanted to support her business. I rarely spend a lot of money on jewelry as I wear more costume jewelry, but I was inspired by her and her amazing designs.

Photo borrowed from Reclaimed & Co

We checked out the local candy store of course, and this two story home decor shop. They had the cutest things!

The Old Bell Tower is a modern rendition of Sturgeon Bay's original tower erected in 1900 and removed in 1939. The original bell was acquired with the cooperation of the First Baptist Church of Sturgeon Bay where it had called congregants to worship since 1946.

Such a cute toy shop! Love the hydrangeas out front.

I loved this old building, which is now a restaurant.

We did enjoy some treats from the food vendors. I especially love these crab rangoons! Oh I never had anything so delicious! They looked and tasted so different from the usual crab rangoons. We also had egg rolls but those were just ordinary.

As we were headed back to our car we saw that the Door County Museum was open and free to the public, so we decided to check it out.

The museum employee was so nice and spent a lot of time talking to us and telling us about the museum.

They had natural displays like this one showcasing all the different types of animals in Door County.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Door County is in this museum; from its landscape, to its animals, to its history...it has it all. This would make a great first stop if you're ever visiting the area.

They had a movie where you could choose whatever topic you were interested in. My husband and I took turns picking the movies. I chose the "Cherryland USA" and my husband chose "Loggers of Door County". I found the history of the cherry trees fascinating. Long story short, it was discovered that the land wasn't good for farming so someone planted a cherry tree and that worked out very well and wa-la the cherry tree industry in Door County exploded!😀 There's actually a lot more to this story, but you'll have to google it if you're really interested or go to the Door County Museum and watch the movie yourself.

We were completely stunned at how extensive and huge this museum was! It looks so small on the outside, but there is a second level too.

There were so many displays of Old Town Door County.

They even had a spot for old firetrucks, a jail, and a hearse!

Door County is famous for its Fish Boil's so there was a whole section devoted to that too!

We spent hours in the museum while it rained outside. We were suppose to go to the Door County Maritime Museum but after spending so much time at the Door County Museum I was kinda museumed-out, so we decided to head back to the hotel, and spend some time in the pool and relax before our evening fish boil.

Door County Fish Boils are famous! This was my very first time at a fish boil, and I was so excited. We chose Waterfront Mary's as the place to enjoy a fish boil because they are the only Door County restaurant who use cod in their fish boils; everyone else uses whitefish.

You need a reservation for any fish boil in Door County because only so much fish fits in a pot.

Now if your wondering what a fish boil is, AI describes it as "a traditional Scandinavian-style single pot meal where whitefish is boiled with small red potatoes and onions over an open fire in a large kettle, then a small amount of kerosene is thrown on the flames to create a dramatic "boilover" that clears films and fish oils."

Our fish boil was held right next to the bay so we had a beautiful view while eating.

Yum, yum, look at all that delicious fish!

Here's a short video showing our fish boil. All fish boils involve a demonstration; it is part of the fun of attending a fish boil.

Everything was absolutely delicious, except the carrots. They were still a little hard. I ended up taking them home and cooking them some more. Waterfront Mary's even included a piece of cherry pie a la mode!

Here are some more photos of this casual waterfront restaurant. It's a pretty popular place as it was packed at 5:00. They have a restaurant/bar in addition to their fish boil and a lot of people were there just to eat in their restaurant.