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Gunflint Trail 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. 

Post update on October 25, 2011

Dartmouth Alumni Magazine Ham Lake Fire Article readers ...

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!

Day #1

Day #2

Day #3

Plastics! (oops ... I mean location awareness software)

In the movie, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman is given some advice upon his graduation from college, plastics! Earlier this year I blogged about location based design, and how I believed this was the next best thing. While the media rages about how Apple iOS and Android are tracking your every move, and is this legal ... consider this fact ... there are many applications to which you would want to give your location.

Last week I learned about (and installed on my iPad) a great new software tool named Wikihood. This amazing appllication uses your location and presents articles from Wikipedia. I have found this software fantastic as I move around the United States of various business and pleasure trips. I just start Wikihood, and I learn about the "local hood". For an application like Wikihood, I'll grant access to my location any day. However, I'm a person who when he was young loved to read the World Book Encyclopedia via alpha volume (see blog post ... The Art of the Browse, World Book and the iPad).

Here are three screenshots from Wikihood and plastics! In each instance, the content delivered is unique to my exact location, not just the surrounding region. Click upon any image to maximize.

Grand Marais, Minnesota (recent bike trip)

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Duluth, Minnesota (my home on Amity Creek)

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Plymouth, Minnesota (my townhome)

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Plastics!

Conan O'Brien's Commencement Address

Are you tired of the same old commencement addresses ... old, tired dignitary delivers boring commencement address. Well, this is not your father's graduation speech. In fact, in just a few days over 200,000 people have watched Conan's speech at Dartmouth via YouTube. I guarantee as Dartmouth alum, there are no where near that many alumni alive today. Thus, the numbers indicate that his talk has broad interest beyond the "Big Green".

Enjoy his talk. He is irreverent, funny, and at the very end serious but in a non cliche manner.

The Circle of Life

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!