Vacation to the Middle of Nowhere

As of November 1, we are ON VACATION! Until January! For med school, each student gets 3 months of vacation to use sometime during the 4 years, and John saved all 3 of his months for this last year. He already used up 1 (this past August, when we went to a family reunion and to Slovenia), and John set up his last 2 vacation months for November and December. It won't all be sunbathing and sleeping in-- John will be flying out to a bunch of residency interviews over the next 2 months, plus he has 2 big Boards exams in December that he has to prepare for-- but we will still have plenty of time to play and be irresponsible.


To kick off our vacation months, John, Benson and I trekked up North on Tuesday for a quick vacation in Door County, WI. If you hold out your left hand (which represents Wisconsin), Door County is located on your thumbnail. We've been hearing from friends for years how gorgeous this place is, how we have to go there, and how it's just an amazingly popular, relaxing, charming destination. It is nicknamed "the Cape Cod of the Midwest" and evidently, the tourism business there just explodes every summer.


Well, we drove up to Door County and discovered... a ghost town. Almost everything was shut down. Since very few people actually live there year-round, and no tourists go there in the middle of the week in November (except us), we basically had no one to share Door County with except the wild turkeys and the foxes.

We arrived at our motel on Tuesday night when it was already dark. The motel was located off the beaten path in the middle of the woods, there were no streetlights, no other cars in the lot, and nobody there except the man who checked us in. Naturally, I freaked out. (Have you ever seen Psycho?) We got the key to our condo/motel room thing, brought in our bags, and I bolted all of the doors and windows shut. After a thorough check in all the closets and under the beds (and finding nothing), I relaxed. We ended up having a delightful night eating Mexican food, swimming in the indoor pool (again, only us with the onlooking motel worker), curling up in front of the fireplace for a Dominos competition, and watching the movie Twister.


We survived the night and were excited to get going on Wednesday to explore Door County. Here is John with Benson at Cave Coast, which is a coastline that eroded away the bottom of the cliffs and formed a bunch of caves. You could peek over the edge of the cliffs and see the natural caves below. We were told this park was supposed to be the most popular tourist destination of Door County, but again, we had the entire place to ourselves.


Almost every shop and restaurant in Door County had signs out front saying, "CLOSED UNTIL MAY," so getting food was a real challenge. We did manage to find "Fatzo's" which is open year round, so despite being nervous about the name, we ate there for a huge, greasy meal. It was delicious!


Here's me with my two favorite guys playing by Lake Michigan.


On our drive back down to Milwaukee, we stopped in Green Bay to tour the Packers' stadium. It was SO COOL! Definitely one of the most fun tours I've ever been on. Ask me anything you want to about the Packers-- I now know the answer!


Here we are on Lambeau Field, right after running through the Packers' tunnel. I thought it was interesting-- Green Bay has 100,000 residents, and this stadium holds almost 75,000 people. And every single game has been sold out for 50 years! (Which is a longer streak than any team in any sport.) Plus, Green Bay is by far the smallest town to have a sports team (in any type of sport), so I gained a new appreciation for how proud these local fans are of their team. The waiting list for season tickets to these Packers games is so long, that it will take an estimated 1200 years before you make it to the top of the list. No joke.

Well, despite vacationing in a ghost town, we had an enjoyable time. I've never before been to a place that just shuts down for half the year, so that was a surprise, but it was nice to not have to compete with crowds or traffic. Or anyone, for that matter-- we hardly saw any human life. But that's okay, it was relaxing, really funny at times, and we came back renewed and energized! I highly recommend a trip to Door County-- in the summer.