November tales!
We first went up to Door County, Wisconsin back in the late 1980’s when we married our second wife. Although Door County can be for lovers it can also be a very cold and forbidding place when, as Gordon Lightfoot said in his ballad about the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, “the gales of November come calling.”
In case you don’t know where Door County is, simply look on any weather map of the United States and it will be that area of Wisconsin that sticks out into Lake Michigan just north a piece from Milwaukie!
October is really the ideal time to go to Door County. It is when the leaves change and the true glory of mother nature explodes all over the peninsula, perhaps almost more so than it does anywhere else. The glory is short lived, however, as the later October winds come rushing through and make usually short work of God’s beauty as the onrushing turn to winter comes full force down from the Canadian north. The largest town, really just a village, in Door County is but around 1500 people and most of them leave at the end of October when the county shuts down in preparation for winter and the warmer climes to be found in Florida and other areas of the gulf coast where these Wisconsin snow birds usually reside. During the summer, however, and the early fall, Door County is for tourism as so many from Chicago and Green Bay and other regional destinations make their way there to enjoy the cooler weather that being in an area bounded so closely on either side by the lake makes life enjoyable for a weekend or a day, or, perhaps even a week or two. There are no major chains of any kind for staying or eating as there are strict zoning ordinances that protect the investments made in the quant little motels and wonderful local restaurants that dot the scene by those who have called Door County home for generations in many cases.
We have never found a more relaxing place on this earth than Door County, Wisconsin. It simply beacons and invites one to bring the family or come alone and spend a few relaxing times just hanging out. In some ways it reminds us of the Florida Keys. There is simply no pressure to do anything at all if one does not want to engage. However, there is plenty to do in Door county if one wishes to be busy. Just driving the simple local roads from small town to small town can be business enough for those with no further inclination. Everywhere one looks there are small shops and boutiques and restaurants and other things that invite one to pull off the byway and partake.
One of our favorite places in all of Door County is the White Gull Inn! It is well over one hundred years old and features the very best treat to be hand in Door County, and, for that matter, most anywhere in America. And that would be the White Gull Inn fish boil! Words can simply not describe this event and the effect that it has on those who have never experienced it before or who have been there one hundred times in the past as many have done. It is a simply exquisite meal that leaves one waiting for the next time that it can be had.
One is never sure of the weather in Door County in the fall of the year when so many gather there for the several fall festivals that draw them in large numbers to the small villages whose numbers swell into the thousands when these dates on the calendar occur. Some people call on January first each and every year to their favorite inn to be sure that they have a place to stay on these so very special October weekends. People dress for anything in Door County in the fall and anything is almost sure to show up as the county is a very unpredictable weather scene at that time of year. No one seems to care! Be it rain or shine or wind or snow flurries, they are ready and able to stand it all just for the unforgettable experience of being in this most relaxing place for just the brief time that they get to be there and escape from the sound and the fury of the rest of their hectic lives. The more hectic the life, the more that Door County rises in appreciation in someone’s soul! At least it does in mine!
There are subtleties to this wondrous place. If the wind comes high one can see the birds of the lake--ducks and terns and the like--sitting quietly on the shore as they bow in respect to the power of mother nature. We have seen large fish returning to their spawning waters in large numbers to reproduce and die as they meander around the docks of the small towns. And, we have heard some of the stories of November Door told by firelight as the tellers of tales bestow what they hold deep in their souls. It is a legacy passed down from generation to generation as only tale tellers can do. But, after hearing these tales, even small children do not sleep restlessly in their beds as they realize the calmness of the place passed along by those who know it best.
Door County is a place to really relax and sleep warmly or make love in ones bed. We have done both and never regretting a moments of any of it as it has created vivid and lasting memories that will stay with us until the end of our days. There is a recent commercial that states that we humans are given but around 25,000 days, “more or less.” The days that we have spent in Door County must rank as very close to the top of that still uncompleted list! They say that our pleasures come from our work and not our leisure, but, those who say that have apparently never been to Door County! If we were to be there a lifetime perhaps the place would become less meaningful to us. Like the finest wine, it perhaps should be taken in small doses but the doses that we do take make living the rest of it so much easier to absorb!
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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