Door County Before Digital

Tracy was always a better dresser than me. (Can you guess which one I am?) Tracy’s the well-prepared tourist who dons sunglasses on her pulled back golden hair, because it’s wildly windy and sunny at Cave Point County Park. I’m the ill-prepared tourist with dull brown hair whipping over my face, catching in my crooked prescription (yet totally fashionable) glasses. I’m 13, awkward, and on vacation in Door County.

Spice Girls are popular – hence the platform flip-flops on the rocky shore. I’m lucky I didn’t break an ankle. My hips are still so small and the hand-me-down denim shorts too big; I’ve got my hips cocked in an effort to keep them from sliding down my white legs as we traverse the shoreline. Note that Tracy’s shorts fit properly.

I’m not sure why our skinny arms are raised in a muscle-man pose – perhaps a suggestion from our mother, the photographer. I’m also not sure why I’m holding two bird feathers. I don’t have them to this day. I didn’t need them. Tracy’s not holding bird feathers because she knows better, even at 10-years-old. The lesson here: leave only footprints and take only awkward photos you’ll laugh at fifteen years later.

Before I lived in this county, I was a tourist. I therefore have some fantastically awkward photos of myself and my loved ones in Door County before the days of digital, before there was an option to Instagram, Photoshop, or delete – licking up Blue Moon ice cream at the Door County Ice Cream Factory, jumping off the dock at Sister Bay Beach, posing by Jerry’s One Man Band at Pumpkin Patch Festival.

And I’m sure you have these photos as well…

In an effort to celebrate the county, the fashions, and the awkwardness that ran rampant before the days of digital – we hope to feature your vintage Door County vacations photos. Let’s see you enjoying the county in your Air Jordans, neon-colored fanny packs, teased hair, and shoulder pads. Embrace the awkwardness!

Submit scanned photos via email to [email protected] or send your photos via snail mail to P.O. Box 694, Baileys Harbor, WI 54202. Include your return address and we’ll send them back!