Today was my birthday. I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and as I was washing my hands, I was humming “Happy birthday to me!” I had to get up at 6:00 this morning to go to a tourism breakfast in Sturgeon Bay with my boss and co-workers from the Welcome Center, but it was fun. We have a new staff member and it was a good opportunity to get to know her better.
Being serenaded by the Griffon String Quartet before the breakfast began
I also got to say Hi to some friends there, the breakfast was good, and I heard about some new directions Destination Door County is trying to go. They were so successful at marketing Door County for tourism that the locals started to complain about things like traffic jams and crowds, so they are now turning their attention to supporting the community as well as continuing to serve the tourists. They are putting money into our parks, the arts, our local children, and things like that.
After lunch, Mark helped me plant a bunch of things I had gotten on our trip back. The 2 reddish vines in the background are wild black cap vines that we discovered in our backyard a couple of years ago. They are also called black raspberries. So I bought 2 raspberry starts and we planted them near the black caps. You can see the short stick in the foreground. That’s one of the new Raspberry starts.Mark got out his new leaf blower and blew off Dobby’s grave in the pet cemetery.We had Kimba cremated when she died in January so that we could bring her back and bury her near Dobby.Mark buried her……and we decorated her grave. The rock with her picture on it was painted by my friend, Delores Warner, and has been saved for this purpose. The 3 rocks in front of that were from the crematorium. They had rocks that you could put on your pet’s grave. The flowers were a boutonniere from Serenity’s wedding that I saved for Kimba’s grave.We have a bush in the backyard that Mark was planning to remove, but while we were back there planting this afternoon, the bush was covered with these butterflies. They are red admiral butterflies. I guess we’ll keep the bush.Then Mark started blowing leaves off the front yard with his big, new leaf blower. That’s his new toy!
Mark came in from working outside all day and he was limping, but he asked me where I’d like to go for dinner tonight. I chose the Shoreline at the tip of the peninsula in Gills Rock.
The view from our windowMark and I are at the age where we order one thing and split it. This was organic Scottish salmon with 5-berry butter, nettle and sage risotto, and mixed vegetables with zucchini, squash, and asparagus. Mark let me have the strawberry that was on top!NWe ordered dessert and my pie came with a candle in it!After dinner, we drove down our famous windy road. It was designed by Jens Jensen, a landscape architect from Chicago, who wanted people to slow down and look at nature around them. Mark was driving our car around the curves as though it was a motorcycle and I had to remind him that Jens Jensen wanted us to slow down and observe the nature around us!The windy road goes 2 miles between Gills Rock and Northport. Northport has a ferry that takes vehicles across to Washington Island. Gills Rock has a boat that takes passengers only over to Washington Island.
I want to thank all my friends and family who called, texted, emailed, or snail-mailed birthday greetings to me. I think this was one of my best yet!
