Door County:Wisconsin,Parks,Fall Fest

Cairns at Cave Point County Park,Door County

At one glance I had the same question you might be having 'Who made these?'.Cairns are used as trail markers in many parts of the world or sometimes even for spiritual beliefs(prayer stone stacks) and here in Door County they are built by people in warm weather months only to be destroyed each winter when ice pushes against the shore.Cave Point County Park is where the edges of rocks of Lake Michigan creates an eye worthy shot!As we explored the trails on both the side from the entrance,we were overwhelmed by the different type of rock formations along the shoreline.

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 After we had spent a bit of time at Cave Point,we proceeded towards Whitefish Dunes State Park,which was just 5 minute drive from Cave Point.In fact we had a feeling if we walked all the way on the trails of Cave Point,we could have reached there in 15-20 minutes.Many have praised Whitefish Dunes Park for the shore with the dunes,but I found it out to be very average.

Whitefish Dunes Park

 So we drove towards Baileys Harbour for Cana Island Light House.The light house is situated on a very small island separated by a small patch of land with Lake Michigan on three sides.

The entry to the island inclusive of Light House charges is $12.Back in 1869 when it was constructed,the Light House was the tallest brick structure in Door County.To reach the deck you have to climb 97 stairs and a narrow hatchway but the views are great from the top and is a bit windy

.Just above the watch deck is the third order Fresnel lens. Prior to Fresnel's creation, lighthouses would burn sperm whale oil in lamps in their light towers. This system proved expensive and also inefficient, as the light generated by this method lost 97% of its generated light, since it would be dispersed in all directions and not necessarily focused in the direction pointing out to sea. As a slight improvement to this method, small mirror-like reflectors were installed behind the burning lamps to redirect the useless light escaping through the back of the tower. The reflectors redirected the back-escaping beam to the front of the tower, where it could then be used as part of the light signal to vessels on the water. These lamps consisted of variations called Argand lamps and then later Lewis lamps. Even with this improvement, using this method still lost about 40% of the dispersed light.

Fresnel Lens at Cana Lighthouse that sends unified light beam that could be seen 20 miles out of sea!

Fresnel's invention, known today as the Fresnel lens, created a way where only 17% of a light source would be lost. By creating a lens that completely surrounded the light source with concentric rings of glass prisms, Fresnel designed a way to take a dispersed light source heading in multiple directions and redirect it through collected prisms by bending and redirecting the light beams. This "bending" of the beams through a Fresnel lens pointed all of the light source in the same direction to create a very intense, focused and unified light beam that could be seen more than 20 miles out to sea using just a 1,000-watt light bulb!The tower closes at 4:30pm for visitors and is closed during winter months.For more information: Cana Island Lighthouse FB Page

 And last but not the least,we thought of joining the fun at Sister Bay Fall Fest at Sister Bay.The Fall Fest had art and craft and music and games and clothes to shop.Just then,I caught the lady who was selling Minion caps.I told her the whole story of how we got to know about her from Fish Creek and she happily smiled and said 'I made these and you are chasing me lady :) '.All in all Door county was a quick vacation and I had good time.It indeed is the hill station of Wisconsin and just as a second thought I had a feeling I must visit this place more often.

Sister bay fall fest 2015

The Pin Ball game at Fall Fest

Other Blogs on Wisconsin: http://wisconsin-explorer.blogspot.com/2015/01/cave-point-door-county-park.html