Brrr - it's cold out there!

Oh boy, it was cold on Tuesday. Minus 6 at half-past two in the afternoon. Now that's cold, right? Being so cold, we had to do things the American Way and view pretty much everything from within the confines of our car (a Ford Taurus and not, as Monday's blog entry hinted, a pink shopping trolley).

First of all, we drove north to Sister Bay and Al Johnson's Swedish restaurant. There is quiet a big Scandinavian presence in Door County so there we were, in North America, visiting a Scandinavian long house, complete with turfed roof, browsing imported Swedish handicrafts. Bizarre, eh? The Mouse really enjoyed this, as one of our American Girl purchases was a mini 'Kirsten' doll, who is supposed to be a Swedish immigrant. The Mouse enjoyed showing Kirsten round the shop and asking her, 'Do you recognise this, Kirsten? Do you feel at home?' I had to reply, in my best 'Swedish immigrant, new to America' accent which, as you might imagine, I did sotto voce. TR loved the dala horses and the decorated chair in the lobby:

Suitably fortified and stuffed full of lingonberries and limpa bread, we went to Gill's Rock. It was very icy here and, as the wind whipped up the waters of Lake Michigan, the sea mist froze on pretty much anything it touched. I asked Mr Ruby to take a picture of the icicles, which he dutifully did, but not before slipping on the ice and terrifying the life out of the Mouse and I. I'd like to include a personal apology here, to my mother-in-law. My first thoughts, as my dearly beloved slid across the icy pavement, were, 'Oh my goodness - his mother will never forgive me!' So, Cynthia, he's fine and I'm sorry. Actually, he thought it all a bit of a lark.

Ooh yeah - that's cold!

We then went to Sister Bay to buy provisions and had tea in our room. With the aid of the microwave, I was even able to make us all hot chocolate with marshmallows.