Coop's Corner: A long weekend of South Shore riding

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

A long weekend of South Shore riding

In a previous post, I highlighted the Flint Hills Trip I took last fall, only the 3rd time that I used a trailer to haul my bike rather than ride it on my travels. Last July (7/11) was my 2nd time and it won't be my last. Able to take along more camping gear, a large fly, extra tools and cooler-food (beer) is a very good thing. The trip involved the TW200 once again, a justifiable bike to haul, extending both the trip's distance away and the length of riding time on the last day. I'm uncomfortable riding in the dark these days but don't mind driving in it.

Leaving for Cornucopia, Wisconsin Thursday afternoon got me to the Bell Township Park Campground on Lake Siskiwit just before dark, camping fee in the primitive park a very fair $6/night. A quick camp setup, the bike stayed on the trailer until Friday morning. The Noah's Tarp stayed in the trunk until morning as well. Watching stars over and above the lake while seated around the campfire was a great way to end a long day.

Friday morning......

First ride after eggs and sausage was south to Long Lake. This is the small picnic area and boat landing at the west end. The family has spent numerous afternoons swimming and picnicking at the east end of the lake.

Rode quite a few fireroads and plowed through lots of deep sand, almost too much even for the fat-tired TW200. Back to camp for lunch and to finish setting up camp. There had been another unit in the camp over night, but they had left bright and early Friday morning. Friday mid-day, I was the only one there.

After a quick lunch, I was anxious to get back on the bike for some more exploring. Having visited the area often, I was curious about the many dirt roads that lead away from Hwy 13 as well as the county roads, especially the dirt roads that led north up to the lake. I set out to start turning north towards Lake Superior at every opportunity.

"ATVer's No Donuts....."

One of the roads to the Lake.....

Fairly overgrown......

And then the lake, right above some of the sea caves....

Another shaded road, not necessarily very car-friendly....

Big Sand Bay Road, Sand Island in the distance......

A different spot, the beach at the end of Allen Road, Sand Bay in the distance.....

At the end of Eagle Bay Road, maybe the loveliest beach of them all, a couple of the Apostle Islands in the distance. These last end-of-road-beaches are all on the Red Cliff Reservation. This one, just around the corner from Point Detour, the spot I'd been a couple of years before on a very windy, rainy day while I was completing the Trans Wisconsin Adventure Trail, a Route that friend Chad put together that essentially uses gravel and fire roads to traverse the 'height' of Wisconsin, from the Illinois border to Lake Superior. I spent some quality time here on a lovely July day........

Saturday morning didn't start wet and rainy but it got that way by mid-morning. It hadn't started yet when I stopped on this hill. Bark River Road, looking east into the valley.

The Port Wing dock and breakwater renovation.

The squall line was rapidly coming east, towards us from Duluth. I headed back to Corny, really in the mood for a hot cup.....

And I found it, a very good one (raspberry scone too!). While I was inside, the hard rain started.

Late morning, under the Noah's Tarp, ear buds in, some lunch and only partly hearing the falling rain. Kayaking class had arrived Friday night, now away somewhere practicing getting wet........

The rain let up after lunch, so I got back on the bike, back to the west to continue where I left off that morning. The Bark Bay Slough Natural Area

Bark Point Boat Launch.....

Port Wing Boreal Forest...

Brule River Outlet into Lake Superior....

Cornucopia Airstrip. 25 years ago Peg and I happened to be in Corny the same weekend that there was a large airshow, across the lake in Duluth. A Stearman biplane was returning home to Illinois after the show and stopped at the mowed airfield, offering rides for $25. I took the best plane ride I've ever or will ever have; open cockpit, fresh air and speeds and altitudes that made being "up" a true pleasure.

Sunday morning, bright and clear. The wetter sand made for better riding....

The Fire Tower. This trail UP doesn't look steep, but it is. I tried a couple of times, sand was too deep and too soft, then found another way up......on the blacktop service road ;)

This is where I'd have come up, had I been able to make it in the soft sand.

Looking south from the base of the tower.....

South Niemisto Road.....

Sioux Beach....

Back in Corny, the obligatory photo in front of The Twin Sisters, wife Peg's grandfather's now-on-land fishing boat.

After spending time in the very fine museum, I returned to the bike parked by the Twin Sisters and saw a group of people standing in front for group photos. Not recognizing anyone, I thought that possibly they were family on Peg's side that I didn't know. I asked and found out that the extended family gets their photo taken in front of the boat every time they're on the south shore since they've got twin daughters, one of them not present this trip.

Back to camp for takedown and the return back to southern Minnesota.....

Packed, the bike on the trailer and ready to go.....

Just under 400 miles for the weekend on the bike, slightly more than that on the car. I'll be doing this again!

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"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)