Wisconsin: Apostle Islands and Door County

Plus a detour to Minneapolis, Minnesota!

August 2022

Sea Caves on Devil’s Island

Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, on Lake Superior, is accessed by boat from the cute little town of Bayfield, in the northern tip of Wisconsin. There are several tours to choose from. Since we had never been here before, we decided to get an overview by taking the Grand Tour, which is a couple hours long and does not stop at any of the islands. There were other tours offered through Apostle Islands Cruises that do stop at a couple of the islands.

We took the boat tour that is in red on this map. We could see almost all of the Apostle Islands from the boat, though some were quite a distance away. The tour guide pointed out bald eagles that were perched in trees on a couple of the islands.

The weather got a bit foggy as the boat got farther out into the lake towards Devil’s Island where the sea caves are located, but it became clear again the closer we got to the mainland.

Lighthouse on Devil’s Island

Right as I took this photo, the tour guide pointed out an otter on the deck. This lighthouse is on Raspberry Island.

We returned to the harbor in Bayfield. Cute shops and restaurants, and lots of colorful flowers in this town. We stopped at the Natl. Lakeshore Visitor Center for information on places to hike in the area. We decided to go to Frog Bay Tribal National Park, as the trail there led to a little beach where we could view some of the Apostle Islands.

We hiked the 1-mile trail through the forest to the beach. This view shows Oak Island and Bear Island.

While we were in the area, we paid a visit to the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center in Ashland. There were some interesting displays, including a large mural which depicted the history of the local community, beginning with the Ojibwe people, then with fur traders, loggers, and the fishing industry.

This was one of several panels of the mural.

There was also an observation deck 5 stories above the nature area surrounding the visitor center.

We stopped at this park in Ashland to look at the storm clouds over the bay.

Just a sampling of the many colorful flowers at this bayside park in Ashland.

From here, we took a detour to Minneapolis, which was in the opposite direction from Wisconsin’s Door County, but as long as we were up this far north, we said, why not?! I’d been wanting to see the famous Spoonbridge and Cherry at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. There were other fun sculptures, as well.

From there, we drove to the downtown riverfront to the NPS site of the Mississippi National River & Recreation Area. From St. Anthony Lock and Dam, we had a great view of the historic mills and the Stone Arch Bridge. Around 1880, 27 flour mills lined both sides of the river.

This was once the world’s largest blanket mill.

A small portion of the Stone Arch Bridge originally built for a railroad line, and now a pedestrian bridge over the Mississippi River.

Our visit to Minneapolis lasted just a few days. We stayed at Baker Park Reserve west of the city. It had a large campground with a popular park and beach area on the lake. After that, we headed east again toward Door County, Wisconsin, on the peninsula that juts into Lake Michigan. Since we don’t like to drive more than 4 hours in a day, preferably just 3, we stopped halfway across Wisconsin to overnight at Jordan Park, a small, quiet county park near Eau Claire. We had a big site backing up to woods and a trail. A few of the sites were nice walk-ins for tents with a view of the little lake.

In Door County, we camped at Potawatomi State Park near Sturgeon Bay. We had some difficulty backing into our site, as we were forced to squeeze into a tight space between trees. This campground was mainly a base from which to explore Door County. Peninsula is the more popular state park, because there is much more to do, but it was a farther drive up the peninsula. The trailhead for the 1200 mile Ice Age Trail is located in Potawatomi.

View from the trailhead. We did not hike any part of this trail.

We enjoyed our visit to nearby Cave Point County Park, as we watched kayakers in the shallow water by the sea caves.

We explored part of Peninsula State Park, including a stop at the overlook at Sven’s Bluff.

View from the overlook

Then we drove around several of the cute small towns on the Door County peninsula. In Sister Bay, goats eat grass on the roof of Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant. We didn’t eat there, but we did stand in line at Wilson’s in Ephraim for milkshakes. We also went to a free cheese-tasting at Wisconsin Cheese Masters.

This cheese was our favorite. I made a white pasta sauce and melted some of this cheese into the sauce—yum!

From here, we travelled to Wisconsin Dells and then to the Chicago area to relive my childhood, the subject of the next post.