Sheboygan was a wonderful stop for us however we were ready to continue down the lake towards Chicago. The forecast was a little iffy but we left the harbor by seven Tuesday morning with a plan to go as far as possible before the weather deteriorated. We made it to Racine, WI by five, 63 miles, which is a long day for us. By 6:00 pm small craft warnings were out and stayed in effect until 10:00 am Thursday morning.
Taking advantage of a “weather day” we spent time visiting downtown Racine and the Racine Historical Museum. This small museum did a great job showcasing the history of Racine which was incorporated as the Village of Racine in 1841, it became an incorporated city within a week of Wisconsin becoming a state in 1848. Built at the confluence of the Root River and Lake Michigan it has worn many hats; logging, boat building, shipping, and other manufacturing endeavors.
Racine was an early automotive powerhouse with companies like Mitchell & Lewis Motor Car Company, Pierce Engine Company, Case Company, Maibohm Motors Company, and Nash. The last automobile manufactured in the city was in 1938.
Who hasn’t read at least one of the Little Golden Books? They began right here in Racine with George Duplaix of the Artist’s and Writer’s Guild, in partnership with Simon & Schuster Publications and the Western Printing and Lithographing Company. The goal was to produce affordable children’s books and to make them readily available. The first twelve Little Golden Books were published in 1942 and in sold at local businesses. The Little Gold Books, now owned by Random House, is celebrating its 75th anniversary.
When we asked the docent of the museum where to have lunch he recommended several restaurants but said we really should go to Kewpee Hamburger, which apparently has been a local hangout in Racine since 1926 with the slogan of: HAMBURG – PICKLE – ON – TOP – MAKES – YOUR – HEART – GO – FLIPPITY – FLOP. Fun staff, excellent hamburgers, and homemade rootbeer!
Today we had a small craft warning until ten but after that weather prediction was for calmer seas with wind from the north so we decided to head for Chicago and DuSable Harbor Marina some 60 miles away. We made it to Belmont Harbor, where we had planned on getting fuel, and then moving on. However, by the time we got there, the wind had changed to the east and waves were on the rise so we will stay here tonight and move to DuSable Harbor tomorrow, a mere five miles away.
Blue Harbor Resort & Spa
Sheboygan Breakwater Lighthouse
North Point Light
Racine Sunrise
KEWPEE Hamburgers
KEWPEE Hamburgers
KEWPEE Hamburgers
KEWPEE advise!
Racine Civil War Monument
Downtown Racine
Racine Historical Museum
Downtown Racine
Downtown Racine
Downtown Racine
Lake Michigan
St. Patrick’s Catholic Church
Root River Bridge
Root River
Racine’s Underground Railroad Maritime Link Monument
Racine Belles: A League of Their Own
Little Golden Books Best Seller
Racine Breakwater Lighthouse
Love Those Plants
Root River Otter
Racine Dragon Boat
Fishing at Root River
Leaving Racine
Racine Breakwater Lighthouse
Deserted Power Plant
Wisconsin Lighthouse
Baha’i Temple is one of only seven Baha’i Temples in the world
We have been in Sheboygan, Wisconsin for four days waiting for fair seas and have been pleasantly surprised by its rich history and interesting sites. With time on our hands, we hiked in the Sheboygan Indian Mound Park and the Kohler-Andrae State Park. Explored the area around the Blue Harbor Boardwalk and Resort, walked the beach at Deland Park next to our marina, enjoyed the Saturday farmer’s market and visited the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and Bookworm Garden. The farmer’s market was unique in that most of the vendors were of Vietnamese descent. Sheboygan has a large population of the Hmong Vietnamese who fled Vietnam after the Communist takeover. These Hmong Americans are very accomplished farmers and grow wonderful looking fruit and vegetables.
The Sheboygan Indian Mound Park which contains 18 Indian effigy mounds distributed over 15 acres. An effigy mound is a raised pile of earth built in the shape of a stylized animal, symbol, human, or other figure and generally containing one or more human burials. A unique feature of the park is an exhibit of an open mound with a burial inside.
Kohler-Andrae State Park has two miles of sandy beach and contains one of the state’s largest collections of rare interdunal wetlands. We enjoy hiking both the Creeping Juniper Nature Trail and the Dunes Cordwalk, the two-mile-long cordwalk that snakes through the dunes gave us a close-up view of the unique landscape with signs that describe plant life, geological history, and animal life.
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, currently celebrating its 50th year, is a not-for-profit art museum operated by the Sheboygan Arts Foundation and has world-class exhibitions, not to be missed are the award-winning washrooms. Currently on exhibit is the home of Loy Allen Bowlin, also known as The Original Rhinestone Cowboy. His artwork largely included bejeweling his clothing, Cadillac, home and even his dentures with thousands of rhinestones.
Bookworm Garden is an enchanting botanical garden based on children’s literature a bus for The Magic School Bus, a barn for Charlotte’s Web, a hollow tree with a door for Winnie the Pooh, a log cabin for Little House in Big the Woods, and much more. Simply charming and so much fun to watch the children enjoying books coming to life.
On Monday we visited the Kohler Design Center and went on the their “Industry in Action” factory tour which was a three-hour tour that took us through the cast iron, brass, and pottery sections of the plant. Imagine seeing a 6-foot red hot cast iron bathtub being brought from the oven to receive its enamel coating. Today that whole process is done by robots but just a few years ago it was all done by hand. Kohler has been making bathtubs since 1883 when John Michael Kohler took a cast-iron horse trough, added four decorative feet to the bottom, and covered it with an enamel finish.
During World War I Kohler made mine anchors, projectiles, and shells, during World War II it made precision valves and fittings for use in aircraft, such as the DC-3 and B-29 and built a variety of electric generators for the armed forces and produced 105mm and three-inch artillery shells, as well as forgings for rockets and other shells, fuses, torpedo tubes, piston rings, shell rotating bands, and engine bearings. For the Korean War, the company produced 105 mm shells.
The Design Center showcases hundreds of the company’s popular and innovative designs in room settings and functional displays in its 36,000 square foot three-story building, with a historical Kohler display in the basement. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures, but we did get lots of ideas for remodeling our kitchen and bathrooms.
For the first three hours this morning we had patchy to thick fog and only one to two-foot waves. By 10:00 am the fog had dissipated and the trip down the coastline was pleasurable. However, there were storms all around us last night causing logs to wash out of the rivers and into the lake so we took extra care to watch for those logs in the fog.
Tonight we are at Harbor Centre Marina, Sheboygan and plan to be here for the weekend as the weather predictions are for winds out of the south until Monday with waves 3 to 6 feet.
It was a bit of a disappointment that we were not able to leave the past two days but we had an enjoyable time exploring the small town of Kewaunee, population 2,869. The main industry of this area is tourism and sportfishing, our small Marina has at least a dozen charter fishing boats with boats going out in the early mornings and late evenings, except for the last couple of days. Yesterday a few went out but came back early and today they have all stayed in.
Aside from water sports, the two main attractions in town are the Tug Ludington and Kewaunee County Jail Museum, both closed for the seasons. The museum is home to the Kewaunee Historical Museum and although the museum was closed we found someone working at their overflow building that invited us in for a brief tour. Tom was very knowledgeable and shared with us much of the history of the area. Like Sturgeon Bay, it was also part of the World War II Emergency Shipbuilding Program.
During our tour, I noticed a picture where the land mass reminded me of the peninsula that helps create the harbor we are staying in. Tom told me that indeed it was the same peninsula and that from 1892 – 1990 it had been the home of “car ferry,” which is where railroad cars full of merchandise were loaded on ships to be shipped across Lake Michigan. The first ferry, Ann Arbor No. 1, made her maiden voyage filled with railroad cars full of flour. The rail tracks and docks are gone the peninsula is now covered by very upscale homes.
Tug Major Wilbur Fr. Browder was fourth in a series of eight seagoing tugboats constructed specifically for World War II. The tug participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy, towing ammunition barges across the English Channel after which it went to Cherbourg, France to assisted harbor operations until being sent to Plymouth, England for the duration of the war. In 1947 the tug was transferred to Kewaunee to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was renamed the “Tug Ludington,” too bad that it was closed for the season, we would have loved to go aboard. It seemed strange to be in a harbor with a ship that played a significant role in WW II.
It is a good thing that we like to hike, neither Sturgeon Bay or Kewaunee had any public transportation or for that matter a taxi. By the time we left Sturgeon Bay we had walked close to twelve miles and then walked another ten miles in Kewaunee. Kewaunee had a boardwalk along the harbor and a Marshland Walk to view the wetlands and river marshes. The people here have been great, the captain of Fishin’ Again even offered us the use of his car for the weekend, but hopefully, we will be gone by then. The owner of the boat we shared the finger pier with gave us a King Salmon filet he caught in Lake Michigan.
The weather forecast is good for tomorrow morning and we are hoping to make it to Sheboygan before the wind shifts in the afternoon. Wish us luck.
Sunrise Salmon Bay Marina
Kewaunee River
36 foot Grandfather Clock, Kewaunee, Wisconsin
Lake Michigan Shoreline
Fog Horn: 2 miles away and we hear it in our marina.
Goose Nest Pub
City Street
City Street
Tug Ludington
Fishin’ Again
Marshland Walk
Marshland Walk
Marshland Walk
Marshland Walk
Marshland Walk
Marshland Walk
It’s a Coyote…or is it? Meant to scare away the Canadian Geese.
The weather forecast was for fair seas today from 11:00 am till 2:30 pm so we left Sturgeon Bay at 11:00 and made it to Kewaunee, WI before the waves began to increase. We are a long way from the hurricanes in the south but they are the reason for the sea state on Lake Michigan. At this time of year, the normal winds are from the west, which doesn’t give the waves a chance to build on the western side of the state, however, the hurricanes have changed the wind directions and the waves are not so predictable.
The City of Sturgeon Bay has approximately 10,000 residents and is located at the natural end of Sturgeon Bay and the beginning of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal. Settled in 1850 its first industry was timber, by 1862 it had 200 residents and three sawmills. Later it became a center for stone quarrying and then, after the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal was opened in 1890, Sturgeon Bay became a center of maritime traffic and shipbuilding. In the late 1940’s it became part of the World War II Emergency Shipbuilding Program building cargo ships to carry troops and material to foreign theatres. At the peak of World War II the shipbuilders in this area were launching a new ship every five days. Today Sturgeon Bay has two shipbuilders, Palmer Johnson, which builds luxury yachts, and Bay Shipbuilding, which makes double-hulled oil barges to replace such single-hulled carriers like the Exxon Valdez.
Today Sturgeon Bay is a thriving tourist town and houses both the Door County Maritime Museum and Door County Historical Museum. The Maritime Museum includes exhibits on lighthouses, ships, shipwrecks, and shipbuilding plus a guided tour of the John Purves, an immaculately restored 1919 Great Lakes tugboat.
CG-41410, a 41-foot utility boat, conducted over 350,000 sorties and saved over $400 million in property and saved over 41,800 lives.
The historical museum has an eclectic collection of items that tell the story of the settlement of the county. The first exhibit is an extraordinary Wildlife Diorama by Mike Orthober which encompasses the four seasons and features a life-sized beech tree along with native species including over 100 birds, white-tailed deer, bear, badger, etc.
The original Door County Library, located in the City of Sturgeon Bay, was one of the 2,509 Carnegie libraries built between 1883 and 1929 with money donated by Scottish businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The first Carnegie library was built in Dunfermine, Scotland, Carnegie’s hometown.
The City of Sturgeon Bay Solar Flair Project is an eye-catching photovoltaic system whose sculptures are intended to add beauty and function in public locations, increasing public awareness of the need for renewable energy and helping to bring solar into the mainstream.
We ended the weekend by enjoying live music on the bay.
Sept. 14 – Thur: Today we entered Wisconsin and are in the Central Time Zone for the first time since March, one step closer to our final destination. We are staying at Sister Bay Marina on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin. The peninsula was named for the route between Green Bay and Lake Michigan, named by Native Americans and translated into French as Porte des Morts: in English, “Death’s Door” because of the treacherous water passage the lies between the Door Peninsula and Washington Island. According to the locals, this small strait is now littered with shipwrecks with the most famous shipwreck at Sister Bay being the Meridian, a schooner that sank in 1873, it is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sept. 15 – Fri: Leaving Sister Bay we headed south to the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal which was dug in 1872. The 1.3-mile long canal provided a safer and shorter passage for ships going to Green Bay than the route of Porte des Morts. The seas were only 1-2 feet but with the wind blowing from the south and short periods between the waves made for a bit of a bumpy ride.
Entering the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal we encountered a navigation marker that we had not seen before called a leading light. When you are in the channel you can see its flashing yellow light if you get out of the channel you can’t see the light, this helps guide traffic through the middle of the channel.
Tonight we are staying at the Quarterdeck Marina, Sturgeon Bay which is a lovely marina that we can hang out in for a few days if need be. We would like to continue our southward journey tomorrow but the weekend forecast does not look promising.
Note: Rick just checked the weather, we are not leaving Saturday or Sunday. Hopefully, we can go on Monday but even that looks problematic.
Sister Bay Music Stage
Goats graze the sod roof atop Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant.
