Our second day in Door County marked our 5 year anniversary, so it was going to be special no matter what we did.

A first morning in Door County was a little gray, which we later realized was the same for the other days, too. It almost looks like a dense fog outside until at least 9am or later. No worries, though, as we didn’t make it out the door until about 10:30am. We headed into town for the annual Harvest Moon Festival in downtown Sturgeon Bay. It featured an antique car show, music, and local merchants with tents all along 3rd Ave. We walked around for about an hour or so, checked out a few shops and grabbed a bite to eat while we were there.

Later in the afternoon, we decided to drive up north again along Hwy 42 and, since we sort of knew where we were headed this time, were able to pay more attention to the scenery instead of the map. It almost seemed like in just 24 hours, the leaves on all the trees along the road had started to change colors, with a few oranges and reds here and there. It is probably more likekly that we just hadn’t paid attention to them yesterday, but it was still a pleasant surprise. We initially were headed up to Fish Creek to check out the bike trails at the Peninsula State Park, but we were getting a little hungry and decided to turn back and head for dinner.

For our anniversary dinner, we chose Stone Harbor right on the waterfront in Sturgeon Bay. There was a wedding at the resort (the 3rd one we saw that day), but we still had enough room at the restaurant for a quiet and lovely dinner. In celebration of our anniversary, we just had to have the tiramisu for desert, as we did as part of our reception 5 years ago.

Of course, after a full dinner and a piece of tiramisu large enough for 4 people to share, we had to walk it off. If was just before sunset, although you couldn’t really tell because of all the overcast and clouds in the sky. We walked along 1st and 2nd avenues downtown, and crossed over the drawbridge at Michigan Ave. As we were walking, we had to keep an eye on the time because we had 8pm reservations for an hour long carriage ride nearby.

At around 7:30pm, we decided to head on over and start our carriage ride early. By this time, it was just about completely dark, and Cindy was really excited when she saw the horse. The two carriages were parked next to each other, and our horse and the one next to it seemed like they were having a conversation. We got on board, and away we went. It was a little chilly, and even though there was just two us in a carriage that seats 6, it felt like we were going pretty slow.

Neither one of us was sure where we would be riding for an entire hour since the area was realtively small, but we ended up going along the bay and through some peaceful residential areas over the course of the tour. Everything was so quiet and calm, along the bay and listening to the water. There lights lit up the shore across the water and with no other traffic or commotion aside from the sound of the horse’s hooves hitting the payment, it was like we were the only ones on the planet. Very nice.

By the time we came back to the resort, it was around 9pm and we were pretty exhausted (as I imagine the horse was, too). The clouds that had lingered throughout the sky most of the day continued their dominance at night, so the amazing display of stars we saw on Friday was nowhere to be seen.

While it would be hard to compare this anniversary to last year’s, it was still very special and memorable. 5 years of marriage in the book, and it still seems like it was only yesterday…