Wolverine Village mini-vacation part 1

Immediately following the Dirty Benjamin I was off on 'vacation'.   As I've talked about before I love my solo vacations.  Everything just seems great when you do whatever it is that you want to do at every moment.  On these trips I generally just keep my eyes and options open and avoid any sort of strict plans.

My first stop was Yker Acres where I dropped off a wheel I'd done a minor repair on for Josey.  It was cool to check out their property and even better to get some absolutely amazing bacon and farm-fresh eggs to serve up for breakfast the rest of my weekend.  I'm pretty sure I'm now addicted to the bacon and will have to buy some in the near future.  The house that they are building/built themselves is also pretty awesome. 

From there I skirted Mt. Du Lac and headed up through Superior hoping to make Wolverine by 10 pm or so.  A sign proclaiming "best ribs in the northland" caught my attention and I wound up having a "fourthmeal" or so for the day.  I ordered "retreads", deep fried potato skins with dipping sauce, and they literally brought me 4000 calories worth of potatoes.  The ribs turned out to be only so-so as I prefer a Carolina style sauce but overall I was happy and so full.  So full that I almost didn't make it past Ashland without copping out and getting a hotel.  After losing that 25 or 30 lbs last year I sure can't eat like I used to, makes me sleepy.

Sunday morning dawned bright and early. Probably. I slept to about 11, cooked bacon, checked email and talked to Bob for a while while he worked on some purses.

 This is his indoor workshop which doubles as a wax room in the winter

 This bag is a new direction for him that I thought was sort of cool

Finally decided to go hiking down at Black River Harbor.  Figured I would go for a nice 3-4 hr hike, come back for homemade Italian Father's Day dinner  thanks to Bob and then go for a nice ride on the Pugnago. 

Not quite!

I don't know how to write about my hiking trip.  It became very long?  There were signs of Sasquatch in the area-

Here is the bridge to the beach and hiking trail-  what you can't see here is the density of the black flies, it was insane!

 This is taken from a rock shelf that is a great place to sit and just be

 view from way down the beach back toward the harbor

I wish I would have taken more pictures, it was absolutely beautiful out there.  I blame the number of pictures on having forgotten to bring the battery for the 'big' camera and thus having to use the little Nikon all weekend.  Also of note...  I don't just forget things/sabotage myself when it comes to bike racing, eh?

Hated to head home to Wolverine but I knew Bob was making homemade, real, Italian and that wasn't something to be missing.  It was amazing!  We ate, drank wine and beer, watched the Masters etc. etc.  NO bike ride this day!

Monday would be a whole different story!

Fat bike in AM.  This was the exact trail and conditions that I had in mind when the geometry of the Pugnago was created.  It is rooty, rocky, hilly and always wet. 

 gratuitous top of the mountain shot!

 riding down the frontside of powderhorn pretending to be skiing is fun, but only until you hit an unseen dip and fly over the bars

 This gives a good feel for what the trails are like

Almost immediate turnaround to Kayak trip but I'm going to put those pictures and more in a second post.