A few minutes ago a couple hundred pound black bear walked by my home office … not more than 15 feet away from me. The bear was majestic, and definitely woke me up from having any afternoon work let down. Here are three other photos I took yesterday afternoon and this morning.
The first photo is of a baby eagle on Northstar Lake. It had just taken its first flight and crash landed into the pine tree. The second two photos were taken this morning around 5:30 a.m. … first the pre-dawn light on Northstar Lake and then dawn over Pughole Lake. I enjoyed my morning commute to Duluth!
Click upon any image to view at full size. This is also why I am the "Northstar" Nerd!
Sorry about the dearth of postings over the past month. Between a project go live at work, and then two weeks in Europe for some much needed vacation, NorthstarNerd.Org has taken a back seat.
I promise some new posts about Android, iPad apps for the Road Warrior, and Google Search in the days and weeks ahead, but in the meantime enjoy some updates from my vacation. I first spent a week cycling on the Isle of Jersey, and then attended a wedding a Oxford University. I've included a brief musical interlude from the wedding at the Balliol College Chapel.
It was particularly fun wearing my "stars and bars" cycling jersey on July 4th. The English loved my uniform, and it resulted in many neat conversations in honor of Independence Day.
And my cycling jersey … custom designed by me for last Summer's Father Son BWCA Superior Tour.
This is why I love northern Minnesota (watch video). Just last year we finished building a house in Duluth allowing my family to move back north. The Gunflint Trail is a dead end highway that reaches deep into the Minnesota border region with Canada, and is the premier canoeing region (BWCA) of North America (along with the Quetico Superior in Canada which it borders). Enjoy my three day bike ride, interspersed with some hikes and a short canoe trip. In total I travelled about 130 miles by bike, and an unknown distance by foot and canoe. Thankfully my son, Carl, carried the canoe on all six portages. After all, his Dad (me), had already biked 50 miles up to Tuscarora Lodge earlier that day.
The Ham Lake fire was tragic all around. Carl (my son), who worked this past Summer at Tuscarora Lodge, maintains his own blog. It has some great photos from the BWCA, including this Fall's Pagami Creek Fire. During my trip this June I canoed past the site where the fire started. Ham Lake is still beautiful, and is experiencing a rebirth (see Tuscarora Lodge, Gunflint, and Ham Lake photos in my video).
For additional information beyond the Dartmouth article, you may wish to read this blog post from from Voyageurs Canoe Outfitters, and this dramatic entry from Tuscarora Lodge (with photos) from the day the fire started and nearly burned down the lodge.
Gunflint Trail Tour on PhotoPeach
And of course, my Gramin data from the 3 days of biking! Click to maximize!
My oldest son, Carl, is working as an outfitter / guide in the BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area). This wilderness area adjoins the Canadian border, and can only be reached by canoe (no roads).
Like his father, Carl blogs. He just posted about a canoe trip he took with another guide. Little did Carl know that his Dad and Mom took the almost identical trip 26 years ago. However, the coolest fact is that my son camped on the same lake where Molly first let me know that she was pregnant, and Carl would be born that December.
The Circle of Life. I've now let Carl know the history of Crooked Lake. Here is his blog post and trip report. The image given below is from Carl's trip … sunrise over Crooked Lake!
Hopefully if you've read NorthstarNerd posts for more than a few months, you understand that I like to take the "road less travelled". After all, it is only by branching out from the normal and common in life that one learns. This is true when it comes to web research and development, but it is also true in terms of ones physical movement from point A to point B in the physical realm.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, I needed to help my youngest son who was starting an engineering internship get established in a new apartment. This required my wife and I to drive 300 miles to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Our trip down to Oshkosh was uneventful. However, I decided to try a new route home via US Highway #10. I knew this meant less miles on Interstate #94, and more time spent driving a two lane highway through rural central Wisconsin. Here was my reward …
While most people were fighting the Memorial Day traffic on the high speed interstate highways, it was unusual when I saw more than one car in my line of sight. Most of the time, it was just our car and the surrounding farmland and forest. Every 15 to 20 miles we did have to slow down and drive through small town America … and then … staring us in the face we saw it! The Wisconsin Pavilion from the 1964 New York World's Fair. Yes, this architectural wonder had somehow worked its way after the fair closed in 1965 back to rural Wisconsin. I had found the Big Cheese!
Seriously, US #10 was beautiful and held unexpected rewards … from the Pavilion to beautiful farms. Do you ever take the road less travelled?
In closing here is some data about the 1964 New York World's Fair Wisconsin Pavilion (click upon the image to view full sized):