Girl's Weekend!

This post is long overdue! I haven't been feeling particularly bloggy lately. My apologies. However, I did want to make sure to chronicle our 2008 Summer Girl's Weekend. Every 6 months or so, four ladies plan a weekend to catch up and sometimes explore. Whether it's a summer weekend in Chicago or a wintry retreat in the Dells, we always have a great time.

Dria, Gina, Christy and I have known each other for over 20 years! YIKES ~ we're getting old. Christy is one of my oldest friendships. We met over a puzzle (I believe ~ CG, am I right?) in Mrs. Hoover's 4K class and a friendship was born. Fast forward...in third grade, I met Dria and Gina over at St. Jude. And again, friendships were created. We attended high school together until sophomore year, often running in different circles. However, after college and the progression of life, we are still friends. As life would have it, we are a little scattered, so it's nice to try and find a time when the four of us can relax and spend time catching up away from our daily stressors.

This year, we chose Door County as our destination. Although I lived up there off and on for three years, I never explored the peninsula as an adult. My family and I traveled up there a few times in my childhood. In fact, the resort we stayed at was one that the Angel family vacationed at years and years ago. It's reminiscent of Kellerman's from Dirty Dancing. I was crossing my fingers that Johnny would walk through the dining room Saturday morning...but no such luck!

Anyhow...the adventure began on Friday afternoon. Dria and I picked up Christy and began our road trip. We arrived safely ~ thankfully, Dria likes to drive right at the speed limit ~ and checked into our lodge. The Alpine Resort. For more about this throwback to a simpler times, click here.

The front entrance of the main lodge.
Welcome, ladies! The dance is at 7:oo in the dining room and a VCR is available to rent in the case of rain.

This here is Gus, der Scheweitzerboob. He greeted us upon our arrival. He also appears on little plaques throughout the entire resort. May I say, he is a handsome devil. And a happy one at that! Here Christy poses with Gus to be near an Alpine celebrity.

Throughout the first floor there were cases set up that contained little scenes. Most interesting...

And on to our SUITE! Since it was three of us sharing a room, we thought it best to get a suite. My, oh, my.

The entrance to our SUITE. Hm. The door looks fancy enough.

Now, when they say suite, they mean it. Check out this TV...it almost prompted me to suggest staying in our room all weekend and trying to track down that VCR! More to come on the Zenith.

They won't come right out and tell you the perks of suite life...but I'm here to let you in on a little secret. There was a corkscrew mounted on the wall in our bathroom. That is what the high class folk expect! AWESOME. Really? In the bathroom? Really...

Once we explored our room, which was outfitted with a double bed in one room and a twin-size couch bed in the other, we headed to our first weekend event. We took in some theatre...which people who stay at the Alpine do. We are classy folk!! We saw the Peninsula Players rendition of Neil Simon's Rumors. The show itself is a bit dated, but they did a nice job of making it work for modern audiences. It was your typical comedy-of-errors Simon play chock full of misunderstandings. It was a great show with a lot of laughs! Peninsula Players' theatre is set right on Green Bay, allowing patrons to witness gorgeous sunsets while walking through gardens and along the shoreline.

Dria and Christy before the sunset, trying to pacify growling stomachs with a little Twizzler action.

Gorgeous sunset on Green Bay.

After the show, we were starving. Our stomachs were rumbling, so the search began. If you've ever been to Door County, you know that most places stop serving food by 9, if not earlier. So, here we were, at 10:15, starving. We could have driven 1/2 an hour back down to Sturgeon Bay (the big city) to the 24 hour Econo Foods or scrounge around until we found something. We had received some pertinent information by what we'll call the concierge at our lofty resort. He mentioned a bar called John Henry's that he felt certain served food a little bit later. So, as we passed through Egg Harbor, we checked it out. It was your run of the mill bar that was still serving food. Good enough. So, Christy and I sampled the soup while Dria gave the Caesar salad a whirl. All in all, it was decent. The owner was really kind and even brought over a sample of some mashed potatoes that had some interesting additions. Forgive me for not remembering. Girls, help me out. After sufficiently filling our bellies, we headed back to the resort and called it a night.

The next morning, the three of us pulled ourselves out of our luxurious beds and were on the hunt for some breakfast fare. Thankfully, we had a dining room right at our fingertips. The Hof. With such a moniker, I secretly hoped the waitstaff would all be Knight Rider David Hasselhoff lookalikes. Much to my chagrin, that wasn't the case. *Single tear*

Gina and Cooper arrived just in time to share breakfast with us. Good thing, as we needed to fuel up before our shopping day!

Dria hanging with Mr. Cooper (I had to say it...)
Look at that sweet face!

Gina and Cooper wait in giddy anticipation for the elevator to take us straight to our Penthouse suite.

Cooper (sitting on Dria's bed) was in awe of our digs.

Off to Egg Harbor and Fish Creek for some shopping! We found all sorts of interesting wares in each of the little shops. Halfway through our shopping excursion, we stopped at a park for lunch. As we talked and ate, a few seagulls were feeling bold enough to approach us. They were mean and nasty little buggers...

Gina's definitely putting this purse on her Christmas wish list!

Cooper checking out our picnic surroundings.

The nasty gull who kept testing his limits of space with us!

Okay, so we may be adults...but no one said we had to act like one. Good thing I try to carry a camera with me at all times!

Group photo before Gina and Cooper left for the day!
Apparently I did not notice that everyone else had removed their sunglasses...oops.

Once our shopping was completed, we were back at the resort with some time to kill. So, we checked out the scenery from the resort grounds.

Dria chillin'!

Can't you just imagine Johnny and Baby dancing up a storm in there?

As we walked around, we noticed that, after a beautiful and sunny day, the sky began to turn an ominous shade of gray. I don't mind a little rainstorm here and there, except we had plans to kayak that evening. We decided to stay hopeful and headed up to the launch site. As we drove, the rain was starting to turn from a drizzle into fat raindrops splattering across our windshield. GRRR. Dria called our kayak tour guides and they confirmed that the trip was off! Now what??? Good question. As noted before, the towns on the peninsula pretty much close after five. What to do...

After a little more browsing, we decided to catch a movie. Since it was a girl's weekend, we decided to continue swimming in the estrogen vein. So, we went with the ultimate chick flick. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Shortly reviewed here. I thought this movie was sweet, sappy and very, very entertaining. It was a great choice for the evening. And although the movie is based on books geared for teenaged girls, I think that many women can relate to the friendships portrayed in this film. After the movie, we stopped by the Neighborhood Pub & Grill in Sturgeon Bay for dinner. To round out the night, our troublesome trio decided to check out the aisles of the local WalMart, because what else is there to do?!? We picked up a few decks of cards and were on our merry way back to the resort.

As we walked in, we noticed a group of people huddled around the little TV in the lobby. The Olympics! Michael Phelps was swimming again. The picture was fuzzy and the volume kept going in and out but the fans were glued. We watched him bring up the USA team to speed and win another gold! HOORAY. Once we arrived in our room, we tried to get our little Zenith to give us anything close to a picture. No such luck. Good thing we bought the cards!

The next day, we said our goodbyes to the resort, spiders residing in our ceiling and the suite life we had been living.

Me saying goodbye to Gus.

It was a great trip to round out the summer! And although our suite wasn't exactly post, it was perfect for what we needed. Thanks, ladies! Looking forward to the next adventure.