Cafe in the Woods

We have returned from Door County. We have survived.

What...exactly...I'm not sure.

There were zombies. They shuffled down streets. They stared up at bluffs. They crawled out of Lake Superior.

They are completely unphotogenic.

You can't see it, but there's a zombie right behind that tree.

I tell you, these are the worst zombies I've ever seen. I mean, we all know zombies go staggeringly slow and go "Uhhhhnnnnnn...Braaaaaaains..." But as far as trying to eat you? They totally suck. What they really want to do is sell stuff. Or try to anyway. It's sort of hard to take a zombie seriously when it's lifting a wine bottle and going "Uhhhhnnnn...Buyyyyyy..."

What got me was how the locals pretty much ignored the zombies. "Oh, don't worry about him," a waitress at the White Gull told me as one zombie shuffled by with a menu. (The White Gull has the best cranberry stuffed french toast I've ever tasted). "We call him Gorgie. He used to be one of our waiters. We just let him pass menus out."

Gorgie wasn't a good waiter anymore. He tried to give a menu to a painting of a woman on the wall, then spent the next hour drooling in the corner.

Most of our time up at Door County was spent being amused at the zombies. We watched them from towers up at Penisula State Park

We watched them suck at playing chess.

We watched them stack rocks at Cave Point Beach.

And we watched them against the background of the sunset.

It was actually quite benign.

The last thing we saw when we left Door County were these huge black vans that were driving up 42 and 57.  I don't know what they were there for, but it's interesting. The further west we traveled, the less zombies we saw. By the time we pulled back into Madison, I didn't see any zombies at all. So maybe the whole thing is going away? I don't know.

The zombies of Door County were the lamest zombies I ever saw. But I do have to admit--they have great taste in wine.

So on Wednesday, I look at my hubby and says, "Let's run away." So we did.

Okay, so we didn't like, really run away. But we did ditch the boy with the inlaws and took off for Door County. We've been meaning to for a while. Just him and me. A sort of weekend getaway. We'll do some hiking, look at fall colors, eat at lots of restaurants, go to a couple of winerys, you know. We got in around 4:30, had some dinner with the lovely folks we're staying with. Watched Pirates of the Carribean, and you know, went to bed.

At 6am, we wake up to hear this noise.

It's this weird, scritching, scratching, moaning noise. Can't explain it. Now, back when we lived in the apartment, we had gophers scratching up in the walls. Drove my hubby nuts. But this is coming from outside. So the hubby gets up and look...

And shouts "HOLY *2^*)_%@ ZOMBIE!!!" So I get up to look and he's right. There was a zombie trying to get into the house.

Wasn't doing a good job, though. I mean, it's a zombie, right. And this one must have been a hunter at some point, because it was wearing old hunting gear, but had a bright orange vest. It also had a shotgun, but it was using the butt end of the shotgun to try to dig into the wall. Which made no sense because at one point, the shotgun went off, blowing off a good chunk of the zombie's head and shoulder. Then it collapsed. It wasn't a particularly smart zombie.

The gunshot woke up our hosts, and we went out to take a good look at it, because the zombie was obviously dead now. Our hosts mentioned that they were listening to the radio and all sorts of weird things are happeningaround the country. Something to do with a virus. I don't know. I can't get more information. The internet is somewhat slow up here.

I also didn't think to take a picture of the zombie until right after we buried the thing, because it really stank. Oddly, not like dead people stink. But more like old cheese stink. We are up in Wisconsin after all. But I can show you where the zombie was standing at the time.

So the hubby says,  "Maybe we should go home...if there's a zombie virus we should make sure the family's okay." And I was like "ARE YOU KIDDING I'VE BEEN TRYING TO GET UP TO DOOR COUNTY FOR YEARS I AM NOT GOING TO LET SOME STUPID ZOMBIES RUIN MY SPONTANEOUS GETAWAY WEEKEND!!1!!!!"

So our hosts told us to be careful. Oh...wait...there's another zombie lurching up the woods. They have gone out to meet it with a crowbar and a stool. Now they're fighting. Huh...I didn't know Mrs. Shepherd knew kung fu. She's really wailing on that zombie. Ah. zombie's dead. They're now dragging it away to bury it. They're really nice people.

Oh, crap. I still had the camera's SD card in my laptop, so I didn't think to take a picture of that too. Oh well. I'll try to keep people current with the situation up here on Twitter using the hashtag #ZombieApoc2012. Don't expect much though, because after all, I *am* on a weekend getaway, and I'm not about to let some stupid Zombie Apocalypse ruin my chance to drink some cherry wine.