A Day in Door County

After 45 years of marriage one would think that describing a wallet would not be too difficult. But for me, it was a bridge too far. Somehow I communicated to my patient wife that I wanted a wallet smaller than the one I have used for the past fifteen years. She contacted The Hide Side, a premium leather store in Fish Creek, WI, and ordered a beautifully made piece. However, due to my limited communication skills, it needed to be exchanged.

Fortunately, Fish Creek is located in picturesque Door County, about a 45 mile ride from my house. After taking care of a few duties around the house I carefully packed the wallet in the swingarm bag on my Harley Davidson Lowrider S and headed up to the Door.

Door County is a vacation hotspot during the summer, but the kids are in school yet and the small bayside towns are still a little sleepy. I rolled through Sturgeon Bay and noted that there were a lot sailboats still in dry dock at Skipper Bud's. Riding over the bridge on the bypass I saw the gulls swooping down over the channel looking for a late breakfast.

That thought made me a little hungry, so I stopped in at the Chocolate Chicken in Egg Harbor. This is one of my favorite stops and it did not let me down. I ordered a blueberry muffin and a cup of their Indonesian Black Satin Blend coffee. The sun was shining on the little table in front of the shop and I enjoyed late morning breakfast while watching a few retirees amble around town.

A great stop for coffee and pastry.

Soon enough it was time to get back on Highway 42 and continue on up to Fish Creek. The two lane highway was not too busy, but the drivers out there were not too eager to get where they were going. I adapted to the leisurely pace and enjoyed the sites. I could not tell whether is was the beginning or the end of the cherry blossom season, but several of the orchards were in full bloom.

The road drops steeply into Fish Creek. It makes a sharp right instead of flowing into the waters of Green Bay, but my destination was at the bottom of the hill. There was a parking spot right in front of The Hide Side, and before long I was perusing the fine leather wallets inside. The experienced clerk helped me find just what I wanted. Fortunately, the young woman behind the counter found a couple of cards that I had left in the one my wife gave me. We had tried it out before deciding to return it.

Just what I wanted!

Door County is a couples type of place, so I did not hang around too long. I rode down to the dock to check out the big boats and take a picture of the bay.

The dock at Fish Creek.

Then I went back up the big hill and south toward Egg Harbor. I stopped for lunch at Shipwrecked. The brew pub has a colorful history including stories about Al Capone, Chief Tecumseh, and ghosts. You can read all about it on their website. Unfortunately, it burned to the ground almost two years ago and it is now a completely new building. The cheeseburger, potato salad and coffee were all tasty.

View from the deck of Shipwrecked.

After paying my bill I took a slow walk out to my bike and took my time getting my riding gear on. It had been an excellent day in Door County and I wanted to make it last a few more moments. The ride home was as enjoyable as the rest of the day. It is early in the season and I plan to make a few more trips to Door County with my wife this summer.

Catholic Parish Rises and Falls in Maple Grove

The racing season at Road America begins in June. Each year I eagerly watch for a good riding day in May and head down to the track to pick up my new identification card. It's an opportunity for a ride and a chance to see what improvements Road America management has made. This year the weather was not very cooperative, but finally it cleared and I was on my way.

It is about a 50 mile ride on the back roads out of De Pere to Elkhart Lake, the home of Road America. While there are not a lot of curves, it goes past a nice park and some beautiful farmland. Farther south the route enters the flat land of Collins Marsh. The marsh was created by dams erected the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources many years ago. This was part of an effort to attract some of the migrating geese from the over crowded Horicon Marsh.

On this day, prior to reaching the marsh, there was a detour. There was some work being done on County W and I was forced east on County K. The detour turned south at County G and led into the little town of Maple Grove. I saw the old church and school and guided my BMW R 1200 GSA into the worn parking lot.

St. Patrick Church in Maple Grove

Thirty years ago I was teaching middle school at the Catholic school in Brillion, which is about ten miles to the west. At that time all of the little towns along US Highway 10 had a Catholic school. In addition to Brillion, they were in Holland, Reedsville, Whitelaw, Clarks Mills, St. Nazianz and Maple Grove. By the late 1980's the Maple Grove school had been closed, but the parish supported the school in Reedsville.

How many students passed through this entrance?

After a few years of teaching I began my work on a Master's degree in Educational Administration. The principal's position at St. Mary Reedsville/St. Patrick Maple Grove came open. A co-worker and I both interviewed for job and she was selected. I took a principal's position at a different Catholic school later that spring, this one on the far east end of US 10 in Francis Creek.

Plaque provides a history of the parish and school.

I had never been to the Maple Grove campus and found it interesting to walk around the site. The plaque in front of the church provided a history of the church and school. The Irish immigrants in the area started the parish and the church was built in 1868. The school was built in 1912 and educated students all the way through high school up until 1956. The school closed in 1981. The church continued through the turn of the century and the last Mass was celebrated on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, in 2002.

As I walked around I could imagine all of the families and their children who had been Baptized, celebrated First Communions, Confirmations, graduations, weddings and finally burials on these grounds. Descendants of the first settlers purchased the convent and the church and have established a tree park. It is a very beautiful and peaceful site.

The history of the school was not all what it seems. Although I did not get the principal's position at the school, I kept in touch with my co worker through diocesan meetings and professional development sessions. Each of these little schools had their own stories and mysteries, and this one was no different. Most of them are closed now. Brillion combined with Reedsville and there are students there. Clarks Mills has a few students and continues to operate. The St. Nazianz school just closed within the past year. The others are gone, but on a quiet spring day it is still possible to imagine the families that spent the arc of their lives within the confines of these old parishes

How Late is Late?

As early March turned into mid-March I became more and more anxious to get out and begin the 2019 motorcycling season. The prior two months had produced some impressive, if not quite record breaking, amounts of snow. The March temperatures were not doing much to melt it all and the riding season got shorter by the minute. It was not until March 21st that I was able to get out on my 2011 BMW R1200 GSA for a ride. I put on 150 cold and windy miles, but at least I was riding again.

In the next few days I commented to a few people that it was the latest I had gotten out in quite some time. Their disinterest in my observation was quite obvious, but I began to wonder if what I felt was really true. Fortunately, I have a trove of riding data that I could examine.

At Christmas in 2000 a friend gave me a leather bound Harley Davidson Hog Log. The book features photographs from the Harley Davidson archives, maps and pages for logging anything you want about your motorcycle and riding it. My first entry is from April 4, 2001, and describes putting in the battery and taking it out for a short ride. The last sentence of the entry is one that shows up often in the next seventeen years: "It was cold".

I have kept a journal of my riding adventures ever since April 2001. There were years when I would miss a few weeks of notes and then try to catch up. But after reading through them all again recently I get a flavor of what each summer was like. Those years took me through job changes, beginning retirement, the passing of my parents and a new bike or two. Around the beginning of 2013 I had filled the Hog Log. I went on a search for a new one, but they were only made for a short period of time and are long out of print. Any that are still in new condition bring a premium price, so I began using a small spiral bound notebook.

Even though there may have been some gaps in my notes through a particular season, I was particular about noting when I began riding each season and when I took the last ride. So I thought it would be interesting to find out if in fact I was out later this year than other years. I went through each of the log books beginning in 2001 and all the way through to the spring of this year. Armed with this data I built a spreadsheet to include beginning date, ending date and miles ridden.

The results of my examination showed that while I was out a little later than recent years, there is a likely explanation for it. First, I can say that 61% of the time my first ride was later than this year and was, in fact, in April 40% of the time. Further analysis shows that of the seven years that I rode earlier than March 21st, four of them have come since I retired in 2014. When I was working I usually had to wait for a weekend riding opportunity, but in the last few years I have been able to ride whenever the weather allows it.

So it is true that the weather prevented me from getting out as early as recent years. I recall those last years of my work life, watching motorcycles rumble by on the first decent day of the spring. I often thought that soon I would be out there too, and I am happy that I have been taking advantage of any early riding opportunities.