Lake Superior's milder cousin

The view of Lake Michigan out the motel window was just dandy, as was falling asleep listening to the waves.

We just got back from what turned out to be more or less an extended beer run to Wisconsin. We had time for a mini vacation, and opted for Door County, where we'd never been.

We default to Superior's North Shore, for good reason. It's much closer to us, has much more dramatic, spectacular scenery and is a tad cooler and (slightly) fewer bugs. That said, I can see the appeal of Door County if you live closer and Lake Michigan's West Shore is your lake break option. Very different character, though, with more golf courses/wineries/shopping and far fewer aging hippies or adventure-minded hipsters. Dave described it as the Okoboji area writ large. I'm glad we went during the shoulder season gap between the hordes of summer visitors and throngs of fall color season tourists.

We chose our destination and motel at the last minute, an arbitrary decision based on which town seemed to have the brewing company with the most promising beer list and then googling motel and "lake view" in that town. That landed us on the island's quiet side at the Beachfront Inn in Bailey's Harbor, which is like the Shoreline of Door County, so it suited us just fine. Great view, minimal but comfortable accommodations, a nice fire lit every night on the beach where guests make mildly awkward but pleasant conversation and get a fantastic view of the night sky. (Oh, and it's dog friendly, so be prepared to be sniffed and have petting opportunities.)

It was an easy stroll to Door County Brewing, where we happily hung out and added more brewvenirs to the cooler. We bopped over to the other side of the island for lunch (Shipwrecked Brewing) and supper (Wild Tomato's wood-fired pizza, try the Paisano), interspersed by attempts to hike it off.

We came home with a full cooler, with a stop at Red Eye Brewing Co. in Wausau. It's a three-hour drive from the Cities, which makes a good breaking spot on the long trip, and they make quite nice beer and food. With the right road burner, I could see buzzing over for lunch, providing we can get a smallish cooler in the saddlebags for more brewvenirs.

And now reality awaits and I'm just trying not to spend time googling how to retire early. (Short answer: Spend less, save more. It's about as likely to happen as eat less, exercise more. Both are good advice, but no fun.)

And this is the view of the sunrise shot through the window because I didn't wake up quite early enough to run outside.