June 6, 2025
Potawatomi State Park, WI to Green Bay, WI
Day 9 - Friday
I had a little or more likely big visitor during the night. I heard what sounded like someone or something getting into a plastic bag. Remembering I had left my left front pannier outside the tent (not sure why I did this), I went out to investigate. A racoon had managed to open the bag and find the only food in there, a plastic bag with 4 or 6 oatmeal packets. The raccoon had proceeded to ripe them all open but it didn't look like he ate to much.
I dragged the bag into my tent and wasn't bothered again during the night.
We packed up and left camp at 8 a.m. How do I know that, well my ever increasing collection of camp toilet photos. Maybe I will produce a coffee table book one day entitled Campground Toilets.
6 miles into our ride today on the Idlewild Peninsula is the Sherwood Point Lighthouse.
This one is another active Coast Guard site so no trespassing for me.
We did find out later that on the following day (Saturday), the lighthouse would be open for Lighthouse Passport Day.
Could this have been another reason for the rest day?
Sherwood Point Lighthouse
Sherwood Point Lighthouse at the entrance to Sturgeon Bay was officially established in 1883.
The first keeper was Henry Stanley up until his death in 1895. His niece Minnie who had come to live with the Stanley family married a local from Sturgeon Bay, William Cochems. After Henry’s death, William became head keeper and Henry’s wife Katherine was appointed assistant until her retirement in 1898. Minnie became assistant keeper at that time.
A fog signal was installed at Sherwood Point in 1892 consisting of a bell, which was struck by a mechanical hammer installed on a small wooden tower in front of the lighthouse.
William Cochems retired on July 1, 1933, at the age of sixty-seven. Minnie had died of a heart attack five years earlier at the lighthouse, after serving as assistant keeper for thirty years. William Cochems spent his whole career at Sherwood Point.
Sherwood Point Lighthouse was the last manned lighthouse on the Great Lakes, automated in 1983.
The Coast Guard continues to maintain the lighthouse and grounds.
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We stopped and ate some snacks at a small roadside picnic area at Riley Point.
We spent the next few hours on country roads riding through farmland. Traffic was light.
Just before Brussels we came upon the St Francis Xavier Church. You can read the history in the photo below.
Once we arrived in Brussels, the town not the country, we stopped at the grocery store, Marchant's Foods and purchased some supplies including meat from the deli for sandwiches. The checkout girl told us there was a park across the road, so we headed in that direction to have lunch.
Not far out of Brussels on County Road DK I saw a sign for the Belgium Heritage Center. As we had a bit of time I thought we should stop and take a look. Located inside an old church, we read about the history of the people that moved here from Belgium and the devastating fire that occurred in 1871.
Very few wooden houses survived the 1871 fire, so the Belgians rebuilt red brick houses, recognized by their gable-end bull's-eye windows.
The center turned out to be a very interesting place.
We rode alongside Hwy 57 and when we saw the large Welcome to Door sign, it just looked to dangerous to try and cross the four land highway to get a photo
We passed through Dyckesville and later crossed over Hwy 57 on an over bridge. We continued through farmland until we reached Church Road where we needed to cross Hwy 57 again to get to the bay side. This was a grade crossing and Friday afternoon wasn't the best time to try this with a steady stream of weekend traffic heading north up to Door County from Green Bay and the surrounding area. Eventually there was a break in the traffic and we made a mad dash to the center of the road. Getting across the south bound lanes was a lot easier.
Looking into this later I noticed we could have stayed on the bay side cutting through Brown County WI Bay Shore Park then taking Nicolet Drive.
Church Road led us to the Holy Cross Church in Bay Settlement. This was also the city boundary for Green Bay. We remarked how few people actually live in Green Bay. Just over 100,000.
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We had arranged a Warmshowers host for the night and I knew they were in the vicinity of the Black Sheep pub on Algoma Road. So when we arrived there, I called Mark and he said to come on round, we were less than 5 minutes away and arrived at 4p.m.
Mark and Kirsten were great hosts. Even though their spare bedroom was being renovated they let us camp on their lawn.
Kirsten cooked a scrumptious meal with Mark helping out on the BBQ and then we had a great desert.
Great conversation, drinks, lot's of laughs, it was a thoroughly entertaining night.
Today's ride: 52 miles (84 km)
Total: 391 miles (629 km)
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