Aug 4-7, Menominee, MI

After spending our morning at the maritime museum we moved in calm water from Sturgeon Bay, 15 miles west across the Green Bay, to Menominee, Michigan.

Leaving Sturgeon Bay

Constructionof the new bridge.

Menominee, Michigan and Marinette, Wisconsin are sister cities separated by the Menominee River which is also the Michigan/Wisconsin state line. Menominee is having a four day waterfront festival here this weekend. We find a nice slip at the large municipal marina (part of the Michigan marina program) and the dockage rate here sets a new low for the trip at $.75/foot/day with Boat US discount. We have 50 amp but no Internet at the dock.

Menominee Marina

However, the marina has a large new clubhouse and boaters lounge that sets the standard by which we will judge all marina clubhouses in the future. Beautifully decorated, it has large shower rooms, and a great lounge area with wifi Internet, a free computer, large screen TV, games and tables and a book exchange. A continental breakfast is served on weekends. The clubhouse is decorated with all kinds of nautical gear, ship models and a fresh water fish tank. Even has a cabinet with all the charts for Michigan and Wisconsin.

Menominee boaters lounge, formerly an industrial building.

Large well decorated room.

Great showers, reading material, charts and Internet.

The main street of Menominee is right up from the marina and has an eclectic mixture of architectural styles dating from the 1880's. The stores on main street are only partly occupied as the commercial center has moved toward the interstate and the mall area.

Downtown Menominee.

Library.

Abandoned building downtown in need of a re-do.

Menominee has a loaner bike program with 'yellow bikes' available to sign out at a dozen locations all over town.

Our crew takes the dingy out for another exploring ride. We find we are using the dingy every day for something or other. Drew and Matt cannot operate the dingy alone, as the engine is over ten horsepower, but they can and do operate it with an adult with a drivers license aboard with them. Matt likes to 'go fast'.

Drew, Kim and Matthew go exploring in Menominee.

Matthew, Kim, Drew and Grampa go bowling.

The Menominee Waterfront festival features rides, food and entertainment. Our favorite ride is the 'mechanical bull'. Every non-profit service group in town seems to have a food booth. Our favorite food is Rotary's ice cream. There are lots of people enjoying the free concerts played in the band shell.

Sailing races are part of the festival.

Entertainment at the marina bandshell.

Firemen from Menominee get ready to compete against neighboring firehouses.

Stream from the firehoses moves a barrel on the wire in a 'push the barrel to the other end' type of contest.

We rent a car in Menominee and take Kim, Drew and Matthew to the airport in Appleton, Wisconsin, for their return to California. We see lots of new development of large corporate buildings and large retail centers along Route 41 in the Appleton area. this is where the new housing subdivisions are being built as well. Now we see why these old downtowns are deteriorating. The demand for space is in the new regional centers.

Owen, Kim, Drew, Matthew and Linda view the Green Bay Packers Stadium on the way to the airport in Appleton.