October by the Numbers

It's been crazy.

celebrated 28 years young

attended 3 beautiful weddings

drove more than 1,200 miles between the old and new house

worked 9 days at the new job

became 1 of the newest members of the Minnesota State Bar

The Headwaters 100 - 2011

The Mississippi River, the largest river system in the United States, starts in Lake Itasca, here in Minnesota! Lake Itasca lies at the heart of Itasca State Park, a wonderful park complete with lodging, dining and of course, great outdoor areas!

Every year Itascatur, of Park Rapids, MN, hosts the Headwaters 100 Mile Bike! It's called the Headwaters 100 because the route takes the 100 mile bikers out to Itasca State Park, around the headwaters, and then back. But, I must make clear, I DID NOT RIDE 100 MILES, I went on the shortest of the rides, logging a serious 45 miles. For the past few years, Calhoun has met up with his dad and they've ridden the 100 miles together, then each head home immediately after the ride.

But this year, it was a family affair! We brought Sogn with us and met with Bemidji, Kenyon, Nokomis, Eveleth and Blueberry in Park Rapids. We all arrived late on Friday and the boys went for the 100 mile ride, Eveleth and I tackled the 45 miles and Bemidji babysat Blueberry while we were off on our adventure.

The great part about this ride is that it truly is a ride, not a race. There are riders of all levels and skills participating in the ride and there are lots of rest stops! It's awesome because by the time you start to get hungry or have to stop and stretch there's a stop!

 Our bikes, at a rest stop

Caramel Apples have never tasted so good! 

The ride went really well, especially taking into account the fact that Eveleth had a baby just a little over four months ago and I, well I'm just a little out of shape. It took us more than three hours to finish. the first part was was on the roads, climbing some hills and flying down the other side - those miles were a little harder. Thankfully, the last miles were on the Heartland Trail, a great paved path through the forest that was nice and flat! And, the trees are turning! Despite this unusually warm weather, the trees are turning and the ride to the finish was the best we could have asked for!

The Heartland Trail

It was a great ride and I am happy I've been to the Headwaters 100. Maybe one of these days I'll tackle the 100 miles??

The Rum River and a Canoe

It's September 18, and it's fall in Minnesota. Mother nature isn't sure what exactly that means for the weather - this past week has, an alternate days, been windy, rainy, still, sunny, and has been in the high thirties or the mid fifties - but she is sure that it means no more warm, sunny weekends. Last weekend was the last, and we took advantage of it!

We packed up the canoe, camp chairs and a cooler full of food and set off for the Rum River State Water Trail. The weather was beautiful, and eagles were swooping out in front of us all day.

About halfway through we stopped on a sandbar, built a fire and grilled some brats for lunch. While we waited for our brats to cook, we enjoyed some brews, waded in the river and Calhoun did some fishing.  It was one of the most relaxing lunches I've had all summer!


The river was tricky though! It was so tricky that I didn't have time while we were moving to take a picture! If you look at a map of the river you can see that the river zigs and zags back and forth. In addition to the path of the river, there was a lot of dead fall (fallen trees) in the river. Thank goodness Calhoun has excellent canoe navigational and steering skills because we made it through the maze without suffering any harm. Even though it was tricky, the action kept us alert and we had a great day.

I may have mentioned before, but Calhoun and I have two canoes in our garage - we own neither of them. One belongs to Nokomis and Eveleth, it was a wedding gift and was made by one of Eveleth's uncles. It's in our garage because they don't have storage space, but the reward for storing it is that we use it whenever we want! It's a beautiful, long, fast, fiberglass canoe and we love to take it to the boundary waters because it just cuts through the water. The other one (pictured here) belongs to my parents, it's an Old Town (not sure the model) and has a wide, flat plastic hull. We call it a bathtub. While the boat isn't fast, it's stable and when we were scooting over fallen trees I was glad we had a boat that could get over the branches!

Grouse Opener 2011

This weekend is grouse opener in Minnesota, which means that the boys are out doing their thing - tromping through the grasses and looking for birds.

Beautiful.

Superior National Forest - Laurentian Divide

Calhoun and I found ourselves up north yesterday and took a hike through Superior National Forest along the Laurentian Divide. We drove three and a half hours in the morning to get up to the Iron Range and three and a half to get back down to the cities so we were happy to get out of the car and stretch our legs.

One thing that shocked us was, on the Iron Range, fall colors are starting to appear!

It's amazing what two hundred miles can do - yesterday there was a temperature difference of about 10-12 degrees between the Range and the Twin Cities. The great news about the cool weather up there is that we were able to let Sogn run through the woods for an hour and a half and he was exhausted, but not overheated like he would have been in hotter weather. It's amazing the difference two hundred miles make!

I loved this little bunch of plants along the trail! They looked like beautiful green flowers!

Sadly, I haven't really made it out on any epic summer adventures besides the wedding weekend away in late August. Calhoun spent a week in the Boundary Waters early in the summer, and a few days up north at his parent's place but I haven't slept in a tent all summer! But - a hike in a national forest is a great mini-vacation and I'm so glad we had the time!

It's Still Marathon Season in Minnesota

For someone who would never event contemplate running a marathon I have watched a lot, all over the state. This summer Calhoun ran in Grandma's Marathon in Duluth. I'd always heard about him running marathons, he did one in high school and another one as part of an Ironman race (yup, 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and a marathon). Calhoun's brother, Nokomis, has run a few since I've known him and so has Kenyon, their dad.

This weekend we took a break from what has already been a crazy school year and went to Walker, Minnesota to watch Kenyon run the marathon out there. First, the weather was beautiful! It was about 15 degrees colder in Walker than it was in Minneapolis and there was frost on the windshield of the car when we got up on Saturday morning. The crazy thing too is that the leaves are already turning up there, so if you want to see fall colors it's time to start. So, weather was beautiful for a marathon and my new patagonia fleece.

Second, the Walker marathon is AWESOME for actually watching the race. Both Grandma's and Twin Cities are so full of runner and watchers that not only is it hard to actually spot your racer, but it's hard to move along the route to make sure that you see them at key points. Unfortunately, you have to park so far away that by the time you actually get back to your car and drive you have to go 8 miles rather than 3 to see your runner. But, only about 100 people run the Walker Marathon so it's not packed with spectators and you get to see and cheer for the same racers over and over again. One of the reasons that Walker isn't packed either is because it's a trail marathon. I never knew until meeting Calhoun, but apparently some courses are faster than others, based primarily on their terrain. Flat courses are considered fast, which includes the Chicago Marathon and London. The Twin-Cities marathon is actually not very fast, because despite Minnesota's reputation as a flat state, the Twin-Cities marathon runners run in and out of the Mississippi River Valley a few times throughout the course of the race, not to mention up Summit Avenue in St. Paul for the finish. Similarly, because Walker is on Northern Minnesota Trails, well groomed but rather treacherous, and up and down through Chippewa National Forest, it's rather slow.

Kenyon's motto was to run and just not get tired. For 26.2 miles. He did great and we had a fun weekend cheering him on!