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.

Algoma

 After driving 10 hours from New Ulm, we arrived in Algoma, Wisconsin on August 9th.  For those of you unfamiliar with this quaint little town, Algoma has a population of approximately 3000 people and is situated on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Ahnapee River..  There is not a single stoplight!  In fact, there is only one stoplight in the the whole county of Kewaunee.  It's a town where you can step in the middle of the road to take a picture and not get run over!  You sure can't do that in Phoenix.

As we biked around town one morning, I stopped to take a shot of the sign that had been erected since the last time we visited.  If you look close, you can see their lighthouse in the middle of the "o".

Also around town are various paintings depicting former times. The Ahnapee trail was once used by the Ahnapee and Western Railroad primarily for logging, but it also was used to transport German prisoners of war to Door County to help with the fruit harvests.  

The sign on the building above let us know you could have a room upstairs and go to the bakery in the basement for a 5 cent piece of pie.  Seemed like a great idea to me.

And no visit to Algoma would be complete without a stop at Von Stiehl Winery, Wisconsin's oldest winery.  We picked up a case for an unnamed relative and got a few bottles for ourselves. One of their signatures wines is made from Door County cherries.

Roy and Char's house sits a few blocks from Lake Michigan and their back yard butts up to the Ahnapee River.  We spent many hours on their back porch looking out towards the river, at times seeing herons, the local woodchuck, duck families and people kayaking up the river.

Here is one pic that I captured of a Heron looking for it's next meal in the shallow water.

This older house has many amenities that you would never find in a home today.  It was obvious that the man who built and owned the house previously made sure every available space was used. Under the stairs to the basement is a small wooden holder just for Kraut recipes!  Any good German would certainly be thankful for this.  After all, doesn't every household have more than one recipe for sauerkraut?

A locked cabinet for guns and ammunition is located just above the basement steps.

And also above these steps is a special cubby for shoe polish.  Roy and Char were told that is what this was used for so they also use it for this sole purpose.  I know of no other house builder in Arizona that offers these options.  You always know where your guns are (if you own any) and the same goes for shoe polish.

One other nice feature in their lovely home is a laundry shoot.  You can drop your dirty laundry from the first or second floor and it will end up in the basement.  Saves a lot of time going down 2 flights of stairs. It also has a holder for some type of paper (maybe more recipe cards for kraut).

A large cute gnome is a new resident in Char's back garden.  But she also has a two sided one that lets you know whether or not you are welcome. I was glad the gnome had the happy welcome face for us!