Early this Spring while planning the BWCA Superior Tour, I wanted to route my son and I over the Echo Trail from Orr to Ely, Minnesota. After doing some extensive research via the web I could not find trip reports from anyone who had bicycled this route. Last week, Carl and I completed our five day bike ride which included our trip across the Echo Trail. Here is my trip report.

First some background about the Echo Trail. This remote dirt logging road cuts through the Superior National Forest and BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area) in northern Minnesota, and was built by the Civilian Conversation Corps (CCC) during the 1930's. It is truly a wilderness area. Cabins, businesses, or buildings of any kind are not allowed till you exit the BWCA section of your ride.

We left Orr at 6:10 a.m. Given the temperature was forecast to approach 90 later that afternoon with high humidity, we wanted to enjoy the cool Minnesota morning. Your trip leaves Orr on County Road #23, which intersects US Hwy #53 at the only traffic light in Orr. The first 33 km (20.5 miles) are on a nice asphalt road with very little traffic. Depending upon the time of day you start your ride, you may have the opportunity to use a small store when you turn right off CR #23 onto the Echo Trail (start of dirt road). This is your last chance to refuel till Ely. Take advantage of it if you are biking later in the day, you have 82 km (51 miles) to travel before you reach Ely.

• 00 Km: Leave Orr, Minnesota on CR #23 (only traffic light in town)
• 33 Km: Turn right off CR #23 onto the Echo Trail (dirt road begins)
• 53 Km: Take a break at the Lake Jeanette US Forest Boat Access! You can sit out on the dock, avoid the worst of the insects, and enjoy this gorgeous northern Minnesota lake.
• 85 Km: Use the boulder high above Big Shave Lake to enjoy a fantastic view! A few miles back on the road you will see signs for two resorts on Big Lake. Each resort requires a side trip DOWN to Big Lake, and a BIG CLIMB back up to the Echo Trail!
• 91 Km: Pavement returns! Don't get too excited; the hills actually get worse as you get closer to Ely. This seems impossible after all the rolling hills you experienced on the dirt road portion of the Echo Trail, but …
• 114 Km: Ely!

Some important final notes … there are no stores or gas stations after the first 33 kilometers. Ely is your first opportunity to refuel since that point. Carl (my son) and I each packed a gallon of water for our trip via the water bottles attached to our bikes, and some extras in our saddle bags. Although the Echo Trail keeps you out of the sun for most of the dirt road portion of your ride, this amount of water was the bare minimum. As a fyi, we left Orr at 6:10 a.m. and the temperature was 64F. The ride took us seven hours in total, and it was almost 90F when we reached Ely (and humid). Although 71 miles may not seem like a ride which should take 7 hours (with rests), the hills were tough, and the dirt road slows down your speed. As a point of comparison, I had recently finished running a marathon in 4 hours 15 minutes, which isn't bad for a 54 year old Dad (my point, Carl and I were both in shape for the ride).

Take a look at either the attached Powerpoint or Adobe PDF files. I have screenshots of my Garmin data with annotations. (Garmin Data: PPT | PDF). Finally, enjoy a few photos from our ride. If you're like Carl and I, you'll bike the next day from Ely down to Lake Superior. The last 10 miles of that ride down to Lake Superior is great fun … hopefully you'll get the prevailing tail wind out of the West like we did!

Cheers, and Happy Trails (link to photo album)!

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In the 1969 I sat glued to the TV set and watched Neil Armstrong become the first man to set foot on the moon. The rocket required to reach the moon was huge, and expensive (Saturn V). This achievement had been set in motion by Russia's launching of Sputnik. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine we would reach the day where I could afford to launch my own personal satellite. However, today is that day!

For $8,239 any person can now launch their own satellite … solar arrays, transmitter, and price of launch ARE included. You can even pay by PayPal for your very own TubeSat. Here is a brief description from the official InterObital Systems web page:

A TubeSat is designed to function as a Basic Satellite
Bus or as a simple stand-alone satellite. Each TubeSat kit includes
the satellite's structural components, printed circuit board (PCB)
Gerber Files,
electronic components, solar cells,
batteries,  transceiver,
antennas, microcomputer, and the required programming tools.
With these components
alone, the builder can construct a satellite that puts out enough power
to be picked up on the ground by a hand-held amateur radio receiver.

Now that's cool! I personally think that college engineering departments should start a new competition based upon TubeSat. We need to get our your technologists excited again about space exploration. After all, if you had $8,000 available, what kind of satellite would you build? I'm still trying to come up with my idea!

In closing, here are two images … the Saturn V Moon Rocket, and the TubeSat Personal Satellite. Click upon any image to view full sized.

I just installed and configured the Outlook Social Connector (integrations: Facebook and LinkedIn). Well done Microsoft! Over the past few years, the name Microsoft has not come to mind when you think of superb social networking software. However this time Microsoft has hit a home run.

While everyone likes to announce the "death of email" and the rise of "social media software", where do you spend most of your correspondence time during a normal work day? For most of us that's means processing messages in our email client. Take a look at the screen shot given below of my home Outlook installation. Since this blog tends to focus upon professional installations, read LinkedIn's blog post about the connector (with installation instructions).

One can easily click upon any person who is a recipient to a given email and at a glance review:

• Meetings
• Past eMails
• Attachments
• Social Updates (in my case, Facebook and LinkedIn)

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I'm on vacation in Minnesota near the Canadian border. My northwoods cabin is in a dead zone which does not have cell phone or internet. Every day I drive to the local bait shop and use the wireless hot spot (and also buy minnows, etc!). Taking advantage of the chance to go online, I decided to check my RSS feeds. One short post about libraries intrigued me which was titled "Boomers and Beyond: Reconsidering the Role of Libraries". Being a faithful user of the library at home, I thought … gee … what a great concept for a book (and research).

However, upon following the links I discovered the only way I could read this book was to throw down $55 and purchase the book. Hmm …. Do the authors understand the web? While their topic is a great one, I doubt many folks will spend that kind of money to read the book. While I understand the need to earn money from one's publishing efforts, might not the book also have been made available as a free digital download? Without this kind of more radical marketing effort, the book's opinions and research will be restricted to a very small community.

The owner of my local bait shop (Terry) on the other hand understands the digital age. After all Frontier Sports attracts people from miles around to purchase leeches, use the free wireless hot spot, and even purchase some cappuccino!

Perhaps this is one of the problems for libraries as we head into the future? There needs to be a better understanding of the digital age and how that affects a library's ability to gain customers.

• Boomers and Beyond: Reconsidering the Role of Libraries

I'm hanging out at my cabin this week in northern Minnesota. I often enjoy the northern lights, but I have to admit I would really love to see the Aurora Borealis from an astronaut's point of view. Thankfully, thanks to NASA astronaut Don Pettit, that is now possible. Watch this cool video which utilizes time lapse photography to look down upon the Northern Lights.