Rowleys Bay

Out of Baileys Harbor [1], WI 57 swoops back toward Sister Bay [2] to WI 42. The next lakeside community, Rowleys Bay, is mostly a massive and well-established resort and nearby campground, Rowleys Bay Resort (1041 Hwy. ZZ, 920/854-2385 or 888/250-7666, www.rowleysbay.com [3], May–Oct., $119–319 lodge/cottages). First of all, everyone still calls it “Wagon Trail,” which until this edition was what it was called (the campground nearby was part of the operation). Originally a bare-bones fishing encampment and later a rustic lodge, the city-state has transmogrified into what is certainly the most comprehensive operation on the upper Door Peninsula. From semi-rustic lodge rooms (though these, with new management, will likely be gone) to posh suites, somehow the place does it all and does it well. Two- and three-bedroom rustically upscale vacation villas are set on wooded or waterfront sites; some can house a dozen folks comfortably, and all have whirlpools and fireplaces.

The contiguous, more or less, campground (920/854-2818, www.wagontrailcampground.com [4], from $37 for tents), spread throughout 200 acres along the bay, is really quite fastidious and professionally run. (It also offers cabins and even yurts!) Reservations are recommended.

Several miles of trails wend through the resort’s acreage; one leads to Sand Bay Beach Park on Rowleys Bay, another to the Mink River Estuary. On the bay, the resort’s marina offers bicycles, canoes, kayaks, paddleboats, charter fishing boats, and scenic excursions.

The reason most folks show up at the resort, though, is Grandma’s Swedish Bakery, a magnet for sweet tooths from around the country hungry for 10 kinds of homemade bread, cardamom coffee cake, cherry pie, Old World–style bread pudding, and scads of muffins, cookies, and pastries. The specialty is Swedish sweets—limpa and skorpa (thinly sliced pecan rolls sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and dried in the oven). The resort’s restaurant features all-you-can-eat fish boils Saturdays in summer.