I am vacationing in Door County with my family, which includes my husband, seven year old daughter, parents, and two 14 year old nephews. We are staying in Fish Creek, but yesterday we decided to make a day of it on Washington Island. I've been to Door County many times in the last 12 years, it's become a yearly excursion, and somehow we've never been to Washington Island. What would it be like? What would we do there? What adventure awaited us on the other side of the ferry?

There were seven of us, so we had to take two cars. Round trip tickets for a car is $24 (JUST the car), adults are $5.50 and children are $3.75. When we got off the ferry we immediately headed towards the Lookout Tower in Mountain Park where the view from the top of the tower was amazing! After that we split up for lunch, with my husband, daughter and I going to a restaurant on Main Street that promised breakfast all day, soup, sandwiches, wi-fi, and a baby grand piano in the dining room, oh and let's not forget the kayak tours. Close your eyes and imagine it with me, do you see a fireplace? Someone playing the piano? Customers lounging around, laptops open, blogging away? Coffee bar perhaps?

Okay, now you need to snap back to what I'd like to call: the reality of island life. The restaurant was about the size of my living room, the baby grand was in the corner with a fence (FENCE?) around it, zero laptops, no fireplace, and only two other tables of customers. The waitress moved on island time, and she even stopped taking our order at one point so she could help someone else find a fork. However, it must be said that that was the best darn grilled cheese sandwich I'd had in a while. AND I was able to log onto wi-fi with my iPod Touch so I could email my brother and check on my dogs.

After lunch we met back up at Jacobsen’s Museum were we met a life long resident of the island. Then we visited an Art & Nature Center, where I searched for a painting to add to my Door County collection (didn't find one though). My nephew bought a boomerang, which my husband immediately tried out in the parking lot. He threw it towards the woods, and I'm sure he expected it turn around right before the trees, but it didn't, and my nephew had to trounce around in the trees until they found it.

Note to anyone with a boomerang: learn to use it before you throw it towards the woods.

We decided it was time to head back to the ferry. My dad's car got on no problem, but we were told we'd have to wait an hour for the next ferry, so we pulled off to the side to wait. Next thing we know we are being waved ahead, once we got up to the ferry it was pretty clear that only one of those little Smart Cars would fit on the deck. The guy leans into the driver's window and says to my husband, "okay, what you're going to do is turn around here and backup onto the ferry, (and then he pointed) sideways there behind that car". And then I looked and saw him point towards my mom, who was already rummaging around in the cooler that was in the hatchback of their Equinox. My husband and I looked at each other, surely this is a joke, right? He didn't just tell us to back up on the ferry, did he? And then we laughed. And from the look on his face we realized that it wasn't a joke, and that we were going to be backing up sideways on the little itty bit part of the deck.

So that was our once in a lifetime Washington Island experience. I think that it'd be a perfect place to go for a bike ride. Maybe next time!