Stepping Outdoors With Craig

The North Shore is a maganet this time of year, and this past weekend was no different. But when you have all the rugged beauty of the lake, rivers and falls; and then you add some fall color, it is bound to attract.

We took our youth group down to the falls and as we always do we had a great time. This is a day where you don't have to plan much, bring some food for a picnic, and then let the kids explore. Perfect sunny fall weather even made the day better!

Well this summer, I guess I hit a sign of getting older. We bought a camper. Now it's not anything huge or extra fancy, however it is a few steps up from the tent we portage into the Boundary Waters.

So with this newly aquired toy we are looking at extending our normal camping season. We picked it up in mid-summer and with a busy schedule have only had it out 3 times. But now we are planning on getting it on the road at least a couple more times in October. We have a trip planned to the Duluth area, and might head out for the Tower area later in the month. Sleeping up off the ground with a furnace running makes it real easy to extend the season. And Fall is both my wife and I's favorite time of year to be out. I'm looking forward to some crisp mornings, some great fall color. biking and geocaching with the camper serving as home base.

And we may have a few tenting weather days left as well, predictions are for a warmer than normal October! See you out there!

We closed out the "summer" and spent the labor day weekend up at the cabin. This included some usual cabin activites of fishing, swimming, hammocking, fire burning and something new.

In one of our fishing outings we picked up an eatable size Northern. Frankly my opinion is there is no such thing, but a friend of mine wanted to keep it. So I took it off my hook and threw it in the live well for him. We got back to shore and as he was getting ready to clean it, someone else suggested we roast it over the fire.

Well in all of our years of outdoor adventures we had never done that. So a few sticks were broken and a spit was constructed over the fire. And we all agreed the end result was pretty darn tasty. In fact we left the sticks in place for next time!