Why We Hiked

Stemless Ladyslipper. L counted 29 plants on
a short section of trail just above the cabin.

 The Cascade River drops 900 feet in the

 last 3 miles before it reaches Superior.

From The Lake to the ridge - a lot of elevation changes.

Mystery hiker.

Tired. Just climbed 900 feet in three miles.
 A lot of it two or three times.  ;-)

Where We Stayed: Inside

The carpet was there when they bought the place, but O'Phelan has promised that next year the carpet will be gone and the floors will be wood with a couple of homey rugs. HE PROMISED! No good pics of the fireplace, but it looks like it does on the outside, except there's a hole in it for the fire.

Typical drawer/door pull.

I liked the label. The wine surprised me.

Dog tired hiker.

Nibbling:  Smoked Atlantic salmon with coarse ground black pepper and coriander.  Pastrami.  Sesame crackers.  Green Pastures aged Gouda.  Dark chocolate with cherries.  Banana.  Red wine.   Life is hard. 

Peter Hoffman: “Sit back, relax and put your feet to the fire.”

Peter and I had things in common and I always enjoyed talking to him. Then one day I realized he was gone - not dead, just gone, gone to Eden Prairie. This time it's really over. He was a good man. He lived full.

Peter Michael Hoffman, of Durham, N.C., passed into another life at age 71 on June 9, 2011. He lived a full life volunteering at the Piedmont Wild Life Center, tap dancing, writing music and poetry, welding iron garden trellis’, creating stained glass, ceramics, mixed media sculptures and wooden garden pergolas. He is survived by his loving wife, Suzanne; daughter and son-in- law, Tatyana and Ben Blankenship; and two grandchildren, Bailey, age 14, and Hannah, 9 years old, all of Durham and at his side as he slipped into the next life surrounded by family, friends and Dr. Brooks. etc

Where We Stayed: Outside

The cabin where we stayed last week is not fancy ... very small by today's standards. It was built in the mid 1920s on a bend along Cascade Creek (not the Cascade River, which is a short hike through the forest). From a nearby parking spot it is accessed  by a footbridge over a narrow rock walled gorge. A short trail down the hill on the backside leads to the O'Phelan Pub pictured earlier. The view of Superior is mostly screened by trees. Not fancy, but ... location, location, location.

Up the creek from the cabin.

The view out of the bedroom window just as the creek takes a  right turn and wraps around to the front and drops into the gorge.

The footbridge across the little eight foot deep gorge at the front. The bridge is about 25'  long and becomes part of the front porch.

A little waterfall below the bridge. Not much, but the sound will lull you to sleep.

Swallowtails in the mud along the stream where the gorge opens up before running to the big lake.

The approach from O'Phelan's.

Next, the interior and how we were forced to rough it.

Photos By the Laggard

We hiked some. Most of our walking was on the Superior Hiking Trail, which runs from Duluth (with a short break around Knife River) to Grand Portage, about 150 miles. We were able to access the trail from our door, across a bridge or two, up through the trails of Cascade State Park. The State of Minnesota has put in some footbridges and signs to keep people orientated, but the trail has been there forever. Possibly not forever, but the animals long ago picked the easiest routes, then the Lakota reinforced them, before being pushed west by the Ojibwe, who spent another 200 years confirming them. I thought about that and how many miles were tread on these paths by moccasins as I was slip-sliding around the wet trail with my flat-soled shoes, which I favor to prevent digging the trails up. I have to admit in moments of weakness I coveted Lorna's lugged soles as she consistently walked away from me.  Hence the reason for all these pictures taken from behind the wife and the pup. Bud is a 12 year old Pug, not normally an outdoorsy breed. All things considered, he was a real trooper, never complaining, even enjoying smelling the droppings of really large ungulates - like moose, etc. At the end of the days we all slept really, really sound.

Music at O'Phelan's Pub

There is a lot of art and live music in the Tofte, Lutsen, Grand Marias area - painters, potters, old folkies and bluegrassers playing in the bars, on street corners, we even bumped into a singer with an open hat at a bookstore. A very serious bookstore. A bookstore where poets come to read their poems. And people listen.

By far the most satisfying group we heard was Wild Mountain Thyme, a family group singing mostly Irish music - and a little Dylan. Damned fine Irish music it was, driven by a thumping bodhran drum and led mostly by the matriarch, Michelle, who on the evening I shot these pictures was having a birthday. I won't say how many, but I will say she looks pretty damned good. There was a surprise party for her, starting off with a Scottish bagpipe player, who mercifully ambushed her with only two tunes. The volume of this war instrument in a small pub is pretty intense. Anyway, all of us in the pub got a lot of cake and the band just played the hell out of that evening. There were drums and penny whistles, fiddles and guitars. And enough Redbreast Irish Whiskey that Lorna started giving me The Look as our bartender Bob just kept pouring me another round.

My benchmark for best concert ever heard has always been 35 years ago, Willie and Waylon in their prime at Redrocks. This was a very, very close second. The husband (guitar) took videos of a lot of it. He was just exuding love and pride. He promised me he'll post it to YouTube eventually. Hell, he's living in a dial-up world. There is NO cellphone there. It's like living a small village that's one block wide and a hundred miles long - with miles between the houses. Which I suppose explains why people make music together in tiny pubs. I suppose I'll post it here if he does upload it, but some things are better just remembered in our minds where they can grow to maturity.

I don't remember all these peoples's names. The couple in the foreground were travel writers from the Chicago Tribune working their way up the shore - nice folks - stopped by our cabin for a while. The white shirt to the right is our Ms Lorna sitting, talking to Mary and Bernie Kukar. I don't remember the name of the guy they're talking to, but he was good people too. The other table was Michael O'Phelan, his wife and a bunch of locals. It's a tight community, close, yet where travelers in the night are invited in to the party and treated as friends. Nice.

I just love the look on the young lady who caught me taking a picture. Is she having a good time or what?

Oh, by actually measurement by this writer, the distance from O'Phelan's Pub to our cabin door was exactly 71 paces. I thought you'd like to know that.

Chumming the Waters

Rough cut:

The integrated cast seatpost clamp has been removed, to be replaced with a machined cylinder clamp. The seat downtube will protrude through the lug, be blended, then cut to have a have a spear point to match the lug set. etc, etc, etc.

More pictures of the built-up frame without fitments this weekend.

Emergencies Are Relative

A nice lady delivered a note to the door of cabin #11 early this afternoon. We are out of cell phone range and do not have a telephone in the cabin (log construction with a beautiful stone fireplace - circa 1927  ;-).  I assumed it was an emergency message as I didn't think anyone knew where we were. One person did, CKC.  On the way by we had stopped at Chris Kvale Cycles in Minneapolis and took a couple of pictures. Chris asked where we where headed and he tracked me down with an emergency regarding fender clearance! He is building the fork and has 19mm clearance from the underside of the crown to the tire. He consulted with Curt Goodrich, who is a big clearance man and Vincent Dominguez, who advocates more minimal clearance, both well reasoned. After some give and take I opted for the more generous clearance - viewed from the side the bottom edge of the fender just barely covering the top of the tire.

I am on a very slow computer hook-up so embeding pictures is not an option. Later. Everyone take care.

Tim Birkhead: The early birdwatchers

This link was forwarded to me by the woman I sleep with, The Bird Lady.

Field Trip To Cousin Fritz's Farm

Cousins.  Same age - been harassing each other for 60 + years.

Lorna takes the wheel.

Fritz has some parcels of restored prairie. We were out in this 15 acre field to see the Lupines blooming and let the kids feel the free Summer wind in their hair. Fritz gardens, only his gardens are 15 and 20 acres each. He denies they are gardens, but he has planted every seed, he controls the weeds, knows every variety of native grass, knows every wildflower and when they flower. And he is proud of his work. Sounds like gardening to me.

A Little Eddy For You