The Peninsula Opened Up

We drove up to Door County for a meeting at Woodwalk Gallery about a printmaking co-op. It looked like it would be cloudy, but by the time we got past Sturgeon Bay the sky had cleared and the air had that early-June quality — warm but not heavy, the kind of light that makes everything look like it was just washed.

The meeting with Donna Brown was positive. The group there seemed genuinely happy to have us, which is a thing you notice when you’ve spent years making art in isolation. We talked about sharing press time, getting work in front of more eyes, maybe selling some of it. I hoped we could find the time. There’s always the question of time.

Afterward, we decided to drive up to Sister Bay. Al Johnson’s — the Swedish restaurant with the goats on the roof — is one of those places every tourist hits eventually, and we figured early season was the time to cross it off. The place felt dated, which I liked. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid. Jojo got into the Door County spirit, thought the goats were cool, ordered the pancakes.

But the real thing that happened that day was north of there. We took side roads along the bluffs and into thicker woods, and I watched Jojo start to see it. The way the light came through the canopy. The quiet. She started to realize how pretty the nature was up here, and I could feel something shift — like a door opening that had been closed, or at least unnoticed.

We stopped at Newport State Park and that sealed it. Thirty-some miles of trails and hardly any roads. Rugged shoreline, Lake Michigan stretching out like it had nowhere else to be. You can camp on a dune right by the shore. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t announce itself — you have to go looking, and when you find it, it feels like it was waiting for you. We decided we would come back soon.

Driving south, we stopped at Peninsula State Park and climbed Eagle Bluff tower. We tried to hike in the woods but forgot bug spray, so instead we sat on a bench on the bay side and just listened to the surf. That was enough. Sometimes sitting and listening is the whole experience, and you don’t need to hike five miles to earn it.

Before we left Fish Creek, we stopped at Not Licked Yet for a turtle sundae. Then we met Cy and Karon at Hands On Art Studio — talked about art and life for over an hour. They were charismatic in the way that people who have built something from nothing tend to be.

The whole day felt like a discovery. Not just of a place, but of the possibility that a place could become part of your life. Door County had been up there my whole life, an hour north, and I’d barely looked. Now I was looking.