Finding Webfooters on the Web

Another afternoon was spent in the tiny town of Fremont.  So tiny (pop 679 in 2010) that technically it isn't even a town, it's a village.  This is home base for the ski team called the Webfooters.  The drive to see them took over an hour and a half from Algoma which meant we had to leave early and travel home partially in the dark.

We had a great meal at the Bridge Bar and Restaurant where we met up with Char's sister Deb and her husband Dick.  We arrived early and were able to sit on the deck outside.  Great view!

Every Wednesday and Sunday the Webfooters put on a free show.  Free is definitely one of our favorite 4 letter words, so we prodded off to the stands just about 2 blocks away.

 

This ski group practices all year long.  In the winter they practice their moves inside a gym and most of the participants are local.  Others drive from nearby towns.

It was quite interesting see them set up in front of the stands, using ladders when necessary.  The boat used to pull this group had three 150 horsepower motors.  

Quite an accomplishment.  This team took first place in Wisconsin competition and 6th in the country.

It not only takes a lot of practice, it takes a lot of courage to be on the very top of the stacks!

Even though you practiced and practiced, sometimes things don't go as planned:

Doing Door County

 A visit to Wisconsin would NOT be complete unless you go to Door County.  Of course, that is just my opinion but I'm sticking to it.  Always our first stop: Door County Coffee and Tea Company.

This is the ideal place for me!  I do love my coffee and there is a whole wall of flavors to choose from.  The hardest part is choosing which ones I want.  Don got a dark roast but my selections included chocolate turtle and another one that included chocolate.  Absolutely the best combination for me.😉

Lunch was at the Shipwrecked Brew Pub in Egg Harbor.  Roy had a Wisconsin Burger which included a burger patty AND a brat patty on a pretzel bun.  Amazingly, he finished it!

After lunch we traveled farther north to Newport State Park.  Don and Roy headed out towards the lake.

No one else was game, but I just had to dip my toes into Lake Michigan.  It wasn't as cold as I expected and there were a lot of people swimming.  For Wisconsin, it was  "hot" 80 degrees outside.

Farther down the beach the local population was taking advantage of the beautiful weather.

Our perfect day was topped off with a stop at Not Licked Yet for some frozen custard. This is a "must stop" place for me.  They only have 3 flavors of custard: vanilla, chocolate and butter pecan.  This was one of the few times that butter pecan won out over chocolate for me.  Don picked that out too over vanilla.

Unfortunately, a lot of people had the same idea.  Do you see the long line waiting to put in their orders?  Don and Roy stood in line for at least half an hour while Char and I commandeered some chairs in the shade.

Oops!  I almost forgot to add in the pictures that I took of gnomes in Door County.  I think the first one was on the Keto diet.

And this guy was on the chubbier side but he looked happier to me. He reminded me of the ones that Char has in her garden.

Sunflowers on a Sunny Day

 Most likely you have been to a corn maze.  But have you ever been to a sunflower maze?  Well, now we can say we've done that!  Wienke's Market and Bakery in southern Door County had planted this huge patch of flowers.  Roy and Char know the owners and while talking with one of them, we found out that the seeds for the huge sunflowers are as big as your fingernail.

We headed off into the maze.  It was a bit hard walking in between the stalks and on the uneven ground. We were surrounded by various colored and sized flora.

 

Yep, that was me peeking out!   Char had one in her hand that was bigger than her head.

The sunflower below had an unusual shape to it and hardly any petals.  But the petals could have been blown off by the previous storm that had flattened portions of the crop.

I loved the way God lined these multi-colored flowers up

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Char managed to get a photo of both Don and I together before we exited.  We did find out way out! Yay!

Liking the Biking

 Another favorite trail in Wisconsin for us is the Ahnapee.  This 33.3 mile trail starts in Sturgeon Bay in Door County and continues on into Kewaunee County to the towns of Algoma, Kewaunee, Luxemburg and Casco.  We can pick up the trail about a mile from Roy and Char's house and head either north or west. The photo below shows the Y in the road where we had to make a decision of which way to ride.

Our first choice was to head north (to the right) and up to Forestville Dam, a 13.5 mile round trip.

This portion included a stop to identify a plant I was asking about. Char was able to do that using the special app on her phone.  That was definitely a plus for modern technology.

I was able to get ahead and get a pic of Roy, Don and Char from the front.  Most of the time I'm at the back of the pack.  One of the reasons I love this trail is the different topography along the way.  We transitioned between forest to more swamp land where the cattails were quite high.

We all took a break at the bridge, noting that the water this year was quite high from all the rain runoff.

Forestville Dam was our turn around point. This has some interesting history.  In 1877 Charles Cofrin was hired to build a gristmill in southern Door County  The Ahnapee River was dammed with mud, rocks and logs.  Afterwards, a 3 story wooden gristmill was erected and farmers from as far away as Egg Harbor would bring their flour to be milled.  The mill would keep 1/4 of the flour as payment and could produce 75 barrels of flour a day. The mill was used until 1925.  After that time, there have been two projects to update the dam.  In 1934 it was replaced with a concrete dam and in 1982 that was replaced with a modern structure.

View from the dam shows how fast the water was flowing.

Shanty Daze-Algoma Style

 Shanty Days in Algoma is a fun filled three day festival, which includes a Saturday morning parade.  This year's them was "Celebration of the Lake", apropos for this town.  As Don and Roy sauntered down one of the main streets for the parade, I was amused at all the chairs left out from the night before.  People had saved their favorite spots ahead of time.  Boy, we sure couldn't do that in Phoenix.  The chairs would have been gone within half an hour. 

The parade started out with dozens of Corvettes from all different years  Any car aficionado would have loved this part.

But it also included little odd cars, roadsters , vintage vehicles and even some horse drawn wagons.

Lots of roadsters like this, but nary a Hispanic driving it.  These were all driven by old grey haired guys! 😅😂.  Another tell tale sign that this was a parade in rural Wisconsin.

This group was having fun on their unique bike.  I wonder if we should find a bike like this and another couple to ride with?

Good old American patriotism still reigns here.  As the group of war veterans passed by with the flag, everyone stood up and paid their respect.  I sure wish more cities would follow this example.

One of the fun things (especially for kids) is the candy that is thrown out to the spectators.

Even better was the sausage that was passed out!  This was a first for us. Now if they would do the same with some cheese, it would be awesome.🧀🧀

The local hearse was one of the last participants.  Maybe it was to remind people not to eat too much sausage.

And at the very end was Thomas the Train followed by Santa Claus!  It's hard for me to even think of Christmas in August when it's hot out.  That jolly old man in the red suit must have been sweltering.

No foxes on the Fox River Trail

 On our second full day in Wisconsin we loaded all the bikes on to our truck and headed west to Green Bay.  We had ridden the Fox River State Trail 9 years ago and wanted to go back again.  We headed straight to the kiosk located in an obvious place along the trail.

We each paid our $5.00 fee to ride on this beautiful trail.  The only ones that don't have to pay are people who walk or jog.

Notice the leaves on the path.  The night before there was a terrible storm just west of Green Bay and even a tornado touched down.

As we biked down the path I noticed this house close by.  It seemed a little top heavy to me.  Unusual, to say the least.  More leaves, and even an uprooted tree greeted us farther down the bike trail.

And when the uprooted tree blocks the whole path, this is what Don did and we followed behind him:

We know a lot of Green Bay Packer fans and the sign along the path informed us that we were not far from former coach Vince Lombardi's home. I recognized his name even though I am definitely not interested in  any type of professional sport. If Vince Lombardi's name came up on a quiz I wouldn't know if he coached baseball, football or basketball.😂😂

The storm had brought wind and lots of rain......so much precipitation that the grass became an impromptu pond.  The ducks were loving it.

 We turned around and biked north towards the bridge coming across several interesting sculptures. 

Finally, as we headed back to the truck it became quite a bit cooler and very windy.  All in all, it was a fun ride.