It's Still Good Riding

 This morning's weather was 38F and light rain, which made for a nice quiet ride on the back roads.  I was thinking, which is always enhanced while bicycle riding, that it will soon be time to get the studded tires off the wall and mounted up.   

 AND...that patch of water near the island in the above picture will be dotted with several ice shacks.

 If there is one thing this retirement thing has brought to the forefront for me, it is that time just flies.  I have been retired five and a half months and it seriously does not seem like five days.  There were a lot of things I had good intentions of doing this summer, didn't get them in and whether I like it or not, summer is history.  That's alright though, because there are things I want to do this winter too.  We will see how that goes. 

 One good thing this summer brought was some relief from a drought that has plagued us these last few years...but it is only a start.  This little lake is one of many in our area.  We call them pothole's around this neck of the woods.   There was not much water left in here last year, and still isn't for that matter, but it is making a comeback.

 

I bought these last February for cold weather riding.  I used them some last year and this morning was the first time for this season.  They are the Sidi Diablo's and they seem to work well for me.  Last year I tested them to only 10F, but I am sure they will go lower.  In the morning rain and 38F, my feet were dry and toasty.

 

Get outdoors and have some Fun!!!

2011 Year of the Great Fall

 I got out for some gravel/trail riding recently.  The weather here has been unseasonably warm as of late, so might just as well take advantage of it.  This was my garb for this ride...mountain bike, backpack with lunch, camera, gps, and bear spray because I did some hiking on this ride also.

 I passed a few of these little grassy swamps yesterday.

 There has been some wind along with the warm weather, so the leaves are falling...already :-)

 This was the logging job the sign warned of.  It was a thin job and they are done now.  They only have a couple truck loads to haul.

 This little gravel trail came out next to two of the few farms in our area.

  

  It is unbelievable how widespread and destructive the July 1st windstorm that came through eastern MN and northwestern WI really is. This stand of Poplar trees is just some that suffered large scale damage.  

 The above picture is part of the North Country Trail.  There is a lot of hours going into to clearing these trails to be passable again.  One day a couple weeks ago while geocaching, I estimated I walked 3 miles of blow down with no trail cut.  I can attest to the fact that it is some very tough walking.  I often wonder how the critters manage in the blow down area...and how many perished the night of the storm.

 This is my favorite type of riding...the riding of little old gravel roads and trails.  Just doesn't get much better in my opinion...but that's just me.

This bike has been very good to me.

and

Lets get outdoors and have some Fun!!!

Mountain Bike Geocaching

Sorry about the absence as I haven't updated the blog in quite sometime.  I gave it a good rest and have decided I will give it a go for a while longer.  In that time I have picked up the geocaching hobby.  It was through reading Joboo that I one day decided to give this a try.

Earlier this week I loaded the mountain bike on the camper and headed for Minnesota's Nemadji State Forest for some caching.  This particular area is a power cache area, as the caches are very close together. The mountain bike worked great for this.

The Nemadji Forest is a fantastic area.  It has something for any outdoor enthusiast from ATV'ing and motorcycling to hunting and of course geocaching.  It was great.  I just picked one of the many little pull offs and set up camp.  While I was sitting in the camper eating supper one night, I glanced out the window to see two Gray Wolves (Timber Wolves) skirting my camp.  There must be a lot on them in this area as the roads were loaded with tracks.  Also saw this little fellow above risking life to cross the road, although its odds of getting hit here during the week was quite slim.

I added a new blog to the blog roll called Midwest Chronicles-Alaska to Wisconsin.  It has some very nice pictures along with some great write-ups...good reading indeed!!

Get outdoors and have some Fun!!!