Door County Escape April 2010

We thought about Florida and Mexico, but in the end, we decided on Door County. Craig and I had several days for a spring break get away long before spring showed signs of arriving. We dreamed of a warm sandy beach and drinks with umbrellas, and maybe a round of golf or two. But instead, circumstances led us back to our roots in Door County. We knew it would be a far cry from the beach we longed for. But it holds a history special enough for us, to warm up even the stubborn Wisconsin spring.

We worried a little about what we would find, but we booked a room with a fireplace and decided to make a leap of faith. It couldn’t have been any more perfect if we had flown to an exotic location many more hours and dollars away.

It’s the quiet season here. Quiet because most tourists don’t venture this direction this time of year, and because so much of the natural beauty of the area is quiet right now too. Frozen actually.
But it turned out we were here at exactly the right time to witness the area waking up. A literal yawning and stretching along the frozen Green Bay shores where ice just days ago locked solid, but today was letting go. Ducks and geese and other birds were enjoying a swim on the tiny inlets of open water, chatting contentedly, and following one another beak to tail through long mysterious pathways of open water between solid sheets of ice.

The outside air warmed to an unusual 60 odd degrees and we felt the sun on our skin while standing beside frigid waters that lowered the temperatures as we walked closer.

We’ve come to Door County dozens of times. It was love at first site from our first visit 20 years ago. We’ve soaked in the amazing beauty of the fall colors, we’ve joined the bustle of summertime tourist jaunts to all the famous spots. John tasted his first sweet sample of ice cream at Wilson’s in Ephram. Both boys learned to skip rocks along the shores here. We remember watching a fawn and it’s mother for half an hour in Peninsula state park.

But we’ve never seen anything like this. Maybe one has to age some to truly appreciate this kind thing. Quiet season here may have been boring if we were younger. But now, this time, it held new awe and wonder in ways hard to explain. But, I like to think we have evolved over time to a place where we feel comfortable to come back north this early in the spring and are in fact, just like the ducks we watched from our rocky shoreline perch; happy to be a pair still together after all these years, happy to feel simple pleasures like the sun on our feathers, happy to be able to turn tail and fish in familiar waters, and happy to see signs of another spring returning drip by drip to our familiar paradise. You don’t need a beach chair to appreciate that.