Door County, WI Peninsula State Park

[Bob C]

On Thursday, Sept 29, Door County was hit by a wind storm that did alot of damage. Most of the county was without power for several days. This county gets about 90% of its income from the tourist industry from campers, hotels, bed & breakfasts, and resorts. Emergency workers had to use endloaders to push hundreds of trees off the roads so that people could leave the area. Electrical crews from all over the state and Illinois worked almost around the clock for 6 days to get everything up and running again.

My wife and I had reservations at Peninsula State Park starting on Thursday, Oct 6. We found out that everything would be reopened at 8:00am on Oct 6 so we decided to see how bad it was. I could not believe the amount of work that went into getting the damage repaired and roads opened. Every road was cleared, every trail in the park was repaired and cleared. The shower building in our campground had the roof repaired and every campsite was beautiful. The leaves were just past their peak color but it sure was pretty.

This is the first time that my wife has camped since she had a stroke 10 years ago (at age 43.) The Toy House was bought specfically to allow her to camp again. We had a great time camping and the weather was probably the best of the entire year. Highs in the 70's, lows in the 50's. Yes, those are the right temps. Had to believe for October in Wisconsin.

My wife was crying when we got home yesterday because she had such a great time and did not think that she would every be able to camp again with her limitations. Even if I only got to use the Toy house this one weekend, it would have been worth the price to see her enjoying everything this much. She wants to go out a couple of more times before we winterize the MH and put it away. Dawn is already planning some camping trips for next summer and a really long trip for 2013 (after I am forced to retire, at age 57.)

I wrote a letter of appreciation to the staff at Peninsula State Park thanking them for all the work thaqt they did to get this beautiful park repaired and back in service.