Door County is the peninsula of Wisconsin. Known for its scenic views and Scandinavian Hospitality. My wife and I got our first chance in 4 years to get a weekend away from the kids and spend some time together. We spent 2 nights in Sturgeon Bay, spent a day driving up one side of the county then back south down the other. We stopped whenever we saw fit, like a small park in Bailey's Harbor just to walk near the water out on a small breakwater.
All the way to the north we stopped at Door Bluff Headlands County Park. Looking for a Geocache we parked the car and walked down to the shoreline. The path was steep but well noticeable. When we reached the shore we noticed a couple of things. First was a Tee Pee made of all the drift wood that someone took the time to gather. Then we spotted the "Bench." Some one a several someone's built this bench with just the rocks that they were able to find. This was a perfect spot for a quick rest and Photo Op.
When we decided to go look for the Geocache (Caves of the Door Bluff Headlands) we had to head down the shore a quarter mile in the rough rocks that fell from the nearby cliff. We only recorded one fall on these rock, but had several bruises to prove the fall. Walking along the cliff
was one of the better hikes that I have taken even though it was brief in distance. We neared the location of the cache we had to scale a small cliff. A little teamwork and we both made it up. We found the cache in rather short order. Searched the next nearest cache as there is another in this park. "Hey its .15 from here lets walk in this direction" I cheered. Off we went with no marked trail, no water and a lot of ambition. Hiking off in the direction the arrow on the screen was telling me we made great headway to the cache. We were within 300 feet of the cache and we looked up and saw a 50' sheer rock face. "OMG" she said as I was trying to figure out a nice way of suggesting we keep looking for an easier route. I never was all that good at convincing her of my good ideas so we turned back towards our original trail. But rather than backtrack all the way to shore we stayed up on the cliff we had scaled to find the cache. "Lets just follow this until we get back to the first trail. Following dead reckoning and the tracks on the GPS we headed back in the direction that we came from. The trail got narrower and narrower until it was merely a game trail. We slowly got higher and higher from the waterline of Green Bay. This made for spectacular views if you wanted to stay close to the edge. The further we trekked the more pitch we encountered. Getting close to a 45' angle and a lot of boulders to climb over I started thinking about my earlier decisions. Remembering that she already fell on level ground coupled with the fact we had no water along we aborted our mission and re-backtracked to our original route. Safely back on the rocks that seemed like rough terrain before was more like a paved bike trail now. Making our way back to "The Bench" we stopped and rested for 10 minutes before heading back up the hill. Safely back at the car we hopped in and found the nearest source of water.
Leaving the northernmost part of the mainland part of the county we headed back south looking for more caches and stopping into shops. All the things we wouldn't have done had the kids been along. Lunch was an andoullie and chicken Po Boy sandwich with a smoked trout as a backup that was purchased at a local smokehouse. A few more Photo Ops and we were back at the hotel for the night. Nothing like Prime rib and a sunset with a pint of Guinness.
We didn't make it a solid Geocaching trip but we did make it our tour guide.
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