We made our annual 4th of July pilgrimage to Door County, Wisconsin. I jokingly refer to them as the Hamptons of the Midwest. It is a favorite haunt of vacationing Chicago-area folks, which in some ways is surprising since it’s a good 4-5 hours away. On a peninsula surrounded by Green Bay and Lake Michigan, with rolling countryside and forests, it’s a gorgeous area and a much-needed break from urban/suburban life. My in-laws moved up there full-time a couple of years ago, and we’ve gone up for the 4th the last 3 or 4 years. The parade in Bailey’s Harbor is fun, and despite how crowded it is, I always manage to see someone I know from back home. Without fail, it happened again this year; my friend Andrew was across the street from me with his family. What are the chances?
One of my all-time favorite things about the Bailey’s Harbor celebration is the strawberry shortcake. Delicious. And even bigger this year!
Anyhow, the family got to do alot of outdoor things that we don’t get the time or opportunity to do otherwise. This included some fishing on Moonlight Bay. We didn’t catch anything except plants, ha. I also realized that I won’t survive the apocalypse since I got squeamish about putting worms on the hooks (real live worms that continued squirming despite being pierced multiple times by the hook, and even after they got split into two pieces). Maybe I should look harder at vegetarianism…
The wildflowers were also in crazy bloom. The 3 y.o. had a blast picking them. She also declared any clump of same flowers a family. 
Anytime there is the possibility of s’mores, they must be had. My in-laws have a fire pit in their backyard, so we made s’mores the second night. Awesome. The secret is DARK chocolate squares. Yumm. 
I mean, seriously, look at this amazing-ness.
We also were going to be out on the water, so I doubled up with the running hat and sunglasses. I ultimately ended up channeling my best Kim Jong-Il, North Korean tourist, imitation.
We took the canoe out for her maiden voyage with us (although she was secondhand, so I think that makes her a reborn maiden, haha). Some men buy sports cars as they near middle age. My husband buys a canoe.
Within the first 30 minutes, the kids hollered about being bored and wanting to get out, so we found a little pebble beach and pulled up. We then did the classy thing of stripping them down to their underwear to let them play in the water. In our defense, it’s much cooler on the lake side, which is where Bailey’s Harbor is, than the bay side (we went canoe-ing in Peninsula State Park), so we hadn’t anticipated getting in the water. 
In addition to all this great cross-straining (haha), I did get a 6 mile run in. I usually do a loop to the Cana Island lighthouse, but I decided to do some roadwork and get some hills in as well. That brought be me alongside a house in the woods with these signs at the bottom of the driveway. 
In case you can’t read it well, the first sign says, “The soft kill. Round Up & GMO’s. Vaccines. Fluoride.” The second sign says, “One nation under God to global tyranny under Satan.” Yeah… The funny thing is that I can get behind the first half of the first sign (specifically, the Round Up), and then it falls apart.
I did get a lovely shot of the sun going down behind some trees, though. It’s so gorgeous in the woods. I always get lines of Robert Frost poetry going through my head.
I ended the run with some form drills, which I was horribly embarrassed by as I got passed by a couple cars and two bicyclists. Oh well. Last week was a little lax on the strength training and form stuff, so I needed to work it in. Plus, I’ll probably never see those people again 🙂
I leave you with this final image. We went to eat at a great pizza place (Wild Tomato) for our final dinner, and this awesome dog waited patiently for the entire length of our meal (and was still waiting when we finished and left) in the side car of this scoot. Awesome. 
RunNerdier 