Swallows of the Cloquet River

I shot this while on a snack break during my ride today. It looks as though the swallows are on a snack break too.
It was a beautiful, but buggy day, so I was glad to see them helping to cut down the local mosquito population.

One Thing Leads to Another

So I'm riding along, minding my own business, when I am forced to screech to a stop in order to get a picture of this happy family.


I backed up a little bit to see where they were going when I saw a bald eagle perched in a distant tree.


I would never had seen him if it weren't for the geese.

Weekend at Temperance

Just in time to set the tone for the Memorial Day weekend, I'm finally getting around to posting about our car camping trip at Temperance River state park last weekend.
We were debating even going as the forecast was calling for rain pretty much the whole weekend, but Temperance is a very hard park to get into, and we had a reservation, so we decided to just brave the elements and go for it.


We got to our cart in site around 11:00 and, being the smart people that we are, decided to get the tent up right away before the rain started. It was an excellent site right on the lake, although a little greenery between the sites would have made it better.


The view was gorgeous, and we got to spend our night hearing the waves crash against the shore.


We were able to wander around by the lake for a little before the rain started.
Since we didn't think that the rain would be letting up any time soon, we decided to take a drive up to Grand Marais and check out the local bike shop. While we were there, we picked up a new collar for Loki, and I was able to obtain what I believe to be the only tin of proofide to be found in any bike shop north of Minneapolis.




Although the rain never stopped completely, it did lighten up enough to allow us to take a short hike up the river. Thanks to the rain, we had the trails all to ourselves.






The wind had been blowing off the lake pretty good all day.

By the time we turned in, the wind was starting to calm and the rain had stopped.
We awoke early Sunday morning, and after a quick breakfast of eggs and sausage, packed up and headed for home. We had beaten the rain once again.

Despite the rain.....and wind......and cold, we had a really good time. We plan on stopping back again this summer, most likely for a day hike, although this would be an ideal base camp for riding the many miles of forest roads nearby. We can't wait.

In a Fog

Sometimes you just have to stop and take a picture.

Me and My Shadow

Metric Century

On Sunday, as part of my "training" as I work towards my goals of a multi day camping trip and hopefully participating in this years Heck of the North, I went on my longest ride of the year so far. I left my house at 7a.m. and headed downhill toward Lake Superior. The temp was in the low 40's with a 20 mph wind off the lake.

This was my first view of the lake. I never tire of seeing it, or so I thought.


Going down Seven Bridges road was one of the highlights of my ride. It's freshly paved, has many nice river crossings, and no pedaling is required.

Decisions, Decisions............I think I'll take a right.


I didn't stop to take many pictures of the lake. The wind was so strong, It was hard to get going again. I was only able to average 11 mph on relatively flat ground.

I was curious as to why traffic was so light. This must be why. I passed a road closed sign a couple miles back, but I figured I had a pretty good chance of getting through.

I stopped at the Mocha Moose for a cinnamon roll and a monkey mocha. I highly recommend both. This is what made battling the headwinds worthwhile.

A couple miles after refueling, I was finally able to use the wind to my advantage. It helped me quite a bit in getting back up the hill away from the lake.
I love seeing the lake, but this scenery is nice too.


It's been a good year for seeing horses. Or at least I'm just stopping to take more pictures than I have in the past.


This immature bald eagle seems to be enjoying the windy day.


I'm getting close to home. This is another of my favorite regular stops.

The final tally. Since I was doing a metric century, I switched my GPSr over to metric units. I was hoping to be back home in under 6 hours, but the wind had other ideas.

At the Beaver Pond

After three days with no riding, I thought I'd better get out Thursday night before I forgot how. I rode around aimlessly for a half hour before deciding to stop at the beaver pond I visited on my Earth Day ride and get a shot of the trucker I didn't get to take then.


You can't have too many bike pictures in front of beautiful scenery, right?

Lately I've been thinking about getting a frame bag to take advantage of the huge amount of empty space inside my frame. It would also give me easy access to my camera and even more importantly, the copious amount of snacks needed just to power my 270 pounds of man and machine across the countryside.


Of course if I did that I wouldn't be able to get shots like this.