I don’t know if it made national news yesterday (Sunday) or not, but we were hit with a storm the likes of which I haven’t seen since the Columbus Day storm in the early 1960’s. Those of you in the Pacific NW will know the one I’m referring to.
We had the day off so we went to church in Sturgeon Bay. The pastor had brought her dog with her because he was acting very nervous in advance of the storm.
Crossing the bridge in Sturgeon Bay before church, the sky was already looking quite overcast.
After church it felt kind of muggy. We went to a buffet in Sturgeon Bay for lunch and when we left the restaurant there still wasn’t any indication that something big was about to happen. We headed north on Highway 42 and pulled in to a geographical marker we’ve passed before. I wanted to see what it was.
Interestingly, I had seen a marker for the 45th parallel when I was in Oregon last week.
Just up the road from this marker was a Christmas store called Mistletoe Holiday House. Those who know me know I love Christmas, so we stopped in there to look around.
Inside the Mistletoe Holiday House in Egg Harbor.
Mark and I were inside looking at everything and I was admiring some handpainted Door County ornaments when the customers who had just left returned to tell the owner that the storm was coming. She went out to look at the sky and immediately began closing shop. Mark and I took that as a cue that it was time for us to leave.
The sky outside the Mistletoe Holiday House as we were leaving.
We headed north on Highway 42 and the storm hit with a fury!
It looked like a big crack in the sky. Mark said to watch for funnel clouds because it looked so ominous.
At this point the rain was coming down so hard we could barely see ahead of us. Mark pulled over to the side of the road with his four-way flashers on because it looked like the cars ahead of us were doing the same…
…Then we discovered why the other cars had stopped. Yep! That’s a tree across the road.
A large tree had fallen completely across Highway 42, but fortunately it was right after the driveway and parking lot for Harbor Ridge Winery. We (and the cars behind us) pulled into the parking lot and sat for a few minutes hoping the storm would blow over, but it didn’t show any signs of letting up. Mark decided to head back south toward Sturgeon Bay and catch the connection to Highway 57 in the hopes that we could get through there.
Another tree partially blocking our way.
A police car warning of work being done ahead. We were still on Hwy 42 headed south and I would have liked to tell him about the tree blocking the road behind us, but Mark said he probably already knew.
We turned off Hwy 42 and headed east toward Hwy 57. Less traffic, but we still found trees in our way.
We finally got to Hwy 57 and started heading north again. “Ah, good! Road crews are cleaning up Hwy 57,” I thought. Shortly after we came across this road crew clearing the road, we found another worker directing us to detour off Hwy 57.
Mark wasn’t sure if Kangaroo Lake would be flooded when we got to it, but it wasn’t. The only thing blocking the road here was a family of geese crossing the road.
We turned back onto Hwy 57 off of Cty Rd Q and saw all sorts of trees down on the golf course. Their roots and the sod had come completely out of the ground.
Driving through Baileys Harbor, we could tell they had been hit too, although the roads were fairly clear.
The storm had passed by the time we got to Cty Rd ZZ near home, but the sky still looked pretty wild!
When we got to the campground we stopped at the office to tell them what the roads were like. We found out that the power and the phones were out. Fortunately, Wagon Trail Campground has generators, so they were running on generator power. Our campsite had no electricity but we also have a generator, so we turned it on when we got home.
I was concerned about writing my blog last night so I waited until today. This also gave us a chance to drive around a little this morning. To the best of my knowledge, none of the trees at the campground blew down. However, in Sister Bay we drove past a home where there was a huge branch on top of the car in the driveway.
The electricity was back on at Wagon Trail Campground this morning, but the land line phones were dead. I needed to see a doctor in Sister Bay this morning and they had phones and electricity there, but the receptionist told me she still doesn’t have power at her house. Besides not being able to use lights and other modern conveniences, when there is no power she can’t get water either because she uses a pump in her well. She felt bad because she wasn’t able to get a shower before coming to work. Wagon Trail doesn’t appear to have that problem, but one of our campers told me this morning that she took a shower in the dark in our back bathhouse last night. I suppose the generator doesn’t reach the back building.
I called Harbor Ridge Winery this afternoon to thank them for conveniently having a driveway and parking lot right in front of the fallen tree. The woman laughed and said they had closed around 4:00 because they lost power. They were closed when we pulled into their parking lot, so it must have been shortly before 4:00 when the storm hit. You may wonder why we were crazy enough to leave the parking lot in the storm, but Mark thought if we headed south and then hit Highway 57 we could skirt around the storm. Who knew it was so big?