Fall colors near Lutsen, October 1st, 2012

I drove my truck up up along the western shore of Lake Superior, known around these parts as  "the North Shore" for peak fall colors, Oct 1st. The colors were superb! Bright reds & glowing yellows.

  My wife Laura riding "shotgun" and my springer spaniel Daisy rounding up the backseat of my truck. We stayed at Eagles Ridge, the ski condo's up the hill from Lutsen's famous lake lodge. Being up along the shores of Superior, of course I had to fill the back of my truck with many 5 gallon buckets of beach rock and more pumpkin size stone I picked up at a rock pit next to Carlton Peak. I used the stones a week later for a new garden along my backyard walkway...Even  with 1,000 extra pounds of weight, I still squeaked out 19mpg coming back home, as long as I kept it under 65mph.

 Here is the view from near Carlton Peak, this is where I collected a bunch of larger greenish colored crystal  rock.

We saw quite a few of grouse along the gravel roads, where I let out Daisy to sniff and flush them up.
This Grouse hopped up on a branch 10 feet off the ground and just watched Daisy sniff for it from above.

I didn't take this picture of the bear cub, but a friend took it the year before in the same area next to the cabin he was staying at, my 1st question, umm, where's mama Bear!

Fall ride to top of Wisconsin, Little Sand Bay

September 16, 2012 I left St.Paul at 7:30 am, my friend Doug left Ironwood Michigan at 8:00. we met in the middle in Hayward  WI, @ the Norske Nook for breakfast. After a few good cups of coffee and goodies, we synced our Sena SMH-10 Bluetooth headsets and we were off.
 (http://www.senabluetooth.com/ & http://www.senabluetooth.com/products/acc_SMH-A0303.php).
 I've been using my Sena all summer since getting it to listen to Pandora radio and get phone calls, but this was my 1st experience with another friend using them as two way, "walkie talkie" communicators. Well, let me tell you, they worked great! We talked for an hour while riding 55-75 mph and it was better as if we were talking, face to face! We both use ER-6I earbuds connected to the Sena units instead of the small helmet speakers that come stock with the Sena's.
We rode our bikes up to Little Sand Bay, a beautiful spot along the southern shore of Lake Superior and took these pictures of us in front of the protected harbor.  

It was a great, day of riding all over northern Wisconsin, temps in the low 70's and low humidity.  We split up near Ashland WI, and I rode back roads all the way home. 475 miles, 11 hours start to finish. One of my favorite rides of 2012.